^.zVBEACON LIGHTS 
of PROPHECY 



GA ALBERT C.KNUDSON .'S 




So^ 




.^ ^ 



K^ ^ 



% c\ 






^ ■clI 



.^ °^ 



V> ^ ^' * , 




-<^.;;:^% " oo^:-^.>; -'^^:;^S' ' ' 










S^o^ 















S^s 



■ ^ * ^ ^/^ 








4°^ 



*^ <?^ 















/ % \^ 



L^'% '^^'^^S' ^^'.^L^S .''^^^^'^^^ 



















%>*... »..V'»-* A^^..„ "^9,. ^"-".r ,.„/%,. '» 




■* .oS-' 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



The Old Testament Problem 

l6mo. Net, 25 cents 



THE BEACON LIGHTS 
OF PROPHECY 



AN INTERPRETATION OF 

AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, JEREMIAH, 
EZEKIEL, AND DEUTERO-ISAIAH 



BY 

ALBERT C. KNUDSON 

Professor in Boston University Schoo] of Theology 




NEW YORK -.EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI : JENNINGS & GRAHAM 






^ 



Copyright, iqi4, by 
ALBERT C. KNUDSON 



/<^K" 



APR 13 1914 

©aA371349 



TO 

M. J. K. 



PREFACE 

These lectures are intended primarily for the 
preacher and layman, not the professional bib- 
lical scholar. Questions of literary criticism are 
consequently either passed over altogether or 
dealt with very briefly. The main conclusions of 
modern biblical scholarship are assumed and 
occasionally stated, but not discussed. What is 
aimed at is a vital interpretation of the prophetic 
movement and especially its six greatest literar>^ 
representatives. 

The standpoint here represented differs in one 
regard from the current view. It is here held 
that eschatology preceded literary prophecy 
instead of the reverse. There is, therefore, no 
valid ground for eliminating the Messianic pas- 
sages from the w^ritings of the preexilic prophets. 
These men were not merely preachers of repent- 
ance. They were heralds of the coming king- 
dom of God. They believed profoundly in a 
marvelous and not distant manifestation of Je- 
hovah in doom and redemption. This manifes- 
tation was to be final and to mark a new era in 
the history of mankind. Only as this fact is 
recognized, can the intense passion of the prophets 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

be fully understood. It was not simply his- 
torical forces and temporal conditions with which 
they dealt. The religious leverage of their mes- 
sage is to be found in their eschatological out- 
look. 

I am deeply indebted to the Rev. Lucius H. 
Bugbee, D.D., for reading the manuscript and 
making a number of valuable suggestions. 

Albert C. Knudson. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter I 

PAGE 

The History and Nature of Prophecy i 

Importance of Hebrew prophecy, p. i — The rank and 
file of the prophetic order, p. 2 — The prophetic bands 
in the time of Samuel, p. 2 — The prophetic guilds in 
the time of Elijah, p. 6 — Deterioration of the prophetic 
order, and rise of the false prophets, p. 7 — Preliterary 
prophets, p. 10 — Relation of Moses to prophecy, p. 11 — 
Samuel, p. 12 — Nathan, Gad, and Ahijah, p. 15 — Elijah, 
p. 16 — Elisha, p. 19 — Literary prophets, p. 19 — Cause 
of the rise of literary prophecy, p. 20 — Relation of the 
literary prophets to their predecessors and the political 
developments of their own time, p. 21 — Classification of 
the literary prophets, p. 26 — Nature of prophecy, p. 28 — 
The Hebrew terms for prophet and their relation to the 
idea of prediction, p. 28 — Prophecy as compared with 
divination, p. 31 — Fundamental difference between the 
prophet and diviner, p. 36 — Clairvoyant quality of the 
prophetic mind and possible reasons therefor, p. 39 — 
Comparison of Hebrew prophets with Greek philosophers, 
p. 45 — ^Function of prophet and priest contrasted, p. 49 
— Differences between prophet and apocalyptist, p. 50 — 
The eschatological element in the teaching of the literary 
prophets and its importance, p. 52 — The prophets not 
merely preachers of repentance but heralds of a new 
kingdom, p. 55. 

Chapter H 

Amos the Prophet of Moral Law 56 

His present distinction due to the work of modern 
critics, p. 56 — His home and its influence upon his mental 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

PAGE 

development, p. 60 — Relation of his message of doom 
to Judah, p. 61 — His occupation and its bearing on his 
intellectual life, p. 63 — His prophetic call, p. 65 — Sig- 
nificance of his message of doom, p. 67 — Analysis of 
the book, p. 71 — The impending ruin as described by- 
Amos, p. 72 — The popular trust in ceremonialism and 
Israel's election, p. 77 — Moral evils of the day, p. 81 — 
Righteousness the one requirement of Jehovah, p. 82 — 
Amos 9. 8-15 not the work of a later hand, p. 84. 

Chapter III 

HosEA THE Prophet of Love 89 

The importance of Hosea, like that of Amos, a modern 
discovery, p. 89 — Political conditions during his time, 
p. 92 — His home, p. 94 — His relation to the priesthood, 
p. 96 — The story of his marriage and its interpretation, 
p. 97 — Relation of his marriage to his prophetic call, 
p. 102 — Teaching and structure of chs. 1-3, p. 104 — 
Analysis of chs. 4-14, p. 106 — The prophet's message 
of doom and its significance, p. 107 — The moral evils 
of his day, p. no — The corrupt worship, p. iii — Hosea's 
denunciation of foreign alliances, p. 115 — His antipathy 
to the monarchy, p. 116 — Israel's cardinal sin, p. 117 — 
Jehovah's love for Israel, p. 119 — The prophet's message 
of hope, p. 121. 



Chapter IV 

Isaiah the Prophet of Faith 

Reasons for Isaiah's preeminence among the prophets, 
p. 125 — His home and family, p. 127 — His prophetic call, 
p. 128 — The historical background of his ministry, p. 131 
— Interview with Ahaz, p. 135 — Scenes illustrating the 
prophet's opposition to rebellion against Assyria, p. 136 
— Isaiah's attitude toward Assyria, p. 141 — Analysis of 
the book, p. 143 — Moral and religious condition of Judah, 
p. 146 — Points of resemblance between Isaiah and the 
two preceding prophets, p. 147 — Isaiah a religious 



125 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

teacher, not a practical statesman, p. 150 — Inviolability 
of Jerusalem, p. 155 — Doctrine of the remnant, p. 156 
— The Messianic prophecies, p. 157 — Interpretation of 
Isa. 7. 14-17, p. 160. 

Chapter V 

Jeremiah the Prophet of Personal Piety 165 

Teaching and influence of Jeremiah as compared 
with that of the preceding prophets, p. 165 — His 
prophetic call, p. 169 — Political background of his min- 
istry, p. 172 — The Scythian invasion, p. 174 — ^Jeremiah's 
relation to the Deuteronomic reform, p. 176 — His ex- 
periences during the reign of Jehoiakim, p. 179 — Reign 
of Zedekiah and fall of Jerusalem, p. 182 — Origin and 
analysis of the book of Jeremiah, p. 184 — Jeremiah's 
message of doom, p. 185 — Moral and religious condi- 
tions during his time, p. 188 — His conception of human 
nature and of the need of a radical change of character, 
p. 189 — Message of hope, p. 191 — The Messiah and new 
covenant, p. 193 — ^Jeremiah's self-revelations, p. 195 — 
His suffering, p. 196 — His attitude toward God, p. 198. 

Chapter VI 

Ezekiel the Prophet of Individualism 202 

The priestly element in Ezekiel 's work and its sig- 
nificance, p. 202 — Relation of his teaching to that of 
Jeremiah, p. 205 — His life, p. 207 — Prophetic call, p. 207 
— Absolute sovereignty of Jehovah, p. 210 — Ezekiel's 
sternness, p. 211 — His commission, p. 213 — His visions, 
p. 215 — Was he a cataleptic? p. 216 — His symbolical 
actions, p. 219 — Evidence that he had an active min- 
istry and was not merely a writer, p. 221 — Analysis 
of the book, p. 224 — Ezekiel's message of doom as com- 
pared with that of the preceding prophets, p. 225 — The 
sins of Israel, p. 226 — Message of hope, p. 228 — Sig- 
nificance of chs. 38-39, p. 229 — Interpretation of chs. 
40-48, p. 230 — Israel's future according to chs. 34-37, 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

PAGE 

p. 231 — Anticipations of Pauline teaching, p. 234 — 
Doctrine of individualism, p. 235. 

Chapter VII 

Deutero-Isaiah the Prophet of Universalism 240 

Reasons for detaching Isa. 40-66 from the rest of 
the book, p. 240 — Relation of Deutero-Isaiah to Isaiah, 
p. 241 — Authorship of chs. 56-66, p. 243 — Deutero- 
Isaiah's home and ministry, p. 244 — Conflicting views 
concerning his date and the theme of his book, p. 246 
— Objections to a post-exilic date, p. 250 — Eschato- 
logical element in Deutero-Isaiah, p. 253 — His message 
almost exclusively one of hope, p. 255 — Restoration of 
the exiles and inauguration of a new era in the history 
of the world, p. 259 — Jehovah as sole deity, the eternal 
and transcendent Creator of heaven and earth, p. 262 — 
Jehovah as a God of grace, p. 265 — Cyrus, p. 266 — 
Israel outside of the servant-passages, p. 267 — The 
Suffering Servant, p. 269 — Deutero-Isaiah's universal- 
ism, p. 274. 

Index of Scripture Passages 278 



Xll 



CHAPTER 1 
THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

Prophecy is the supreme gift of Israel to the 
world. There is nothing comparable to it in the 
religious history of mankind. Other peoples 
have had their great religious teachers: the 
Hindus their Buddha, the Persians their Zoro- 
aster, the Arabians their Mohammed. But 
nowhere do we find a succession of men extend- 
ing over several centuries of time, who enter- 
tained such lofty conceptions of religion, devoted 
themselves with such passion and power to the 
realization of these conceptions, and contributed 
so much to the permanent moralization and spir- 
itualization of religion, as did the prophets of 
Israel. These men occupy a unique place in 
religious history. To them more than to any 
other group of men the world is indebted for its 
richest and noblest spiritual treasure. 

In the following chapters we are to study six 
of the greatest of these prophets. But prelimi- 
nary to these special studies, it is necessary that we 
give some account both of the history and nature 
of prophecy in general. We begin with the his- 
tory. 

z 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

History of Prophecy 

Prophecy in the Old Testament is by no means 
a simple phenomenon. It contains different and 
even discordant elements. First, we may dis- 
tinguish the rank and file of the prophetic order. 
These prophets come into special prominence at 
two important crises of the nation's history — 
during the Philistine wars of the eleventh cen- 
tury and the Syrian wars of the ninth century. 
But they are frequently referred to by the canon- 
ical prophets, and appear as late as the time of 
Nehemiah (6. 10-14). It is probable, then, that 
they formed a continuous institution in Israel, at 
least from the eleventh century before Christ 
down into the postexilic period. 

Groups or bands of prophets first appear in the 
time of Samuel (i Sam. 10. 5-13). They then 
apparently moved about the country devoting 
themselves to a rather extravagant type of reli- 
gious life. They carried musical instruments 
with them, and by means of music and song seem 
to have worked themselves up into a state of 
frenzy. Indeed, so conspicuous a feature of their 
life was this physical excitement that they were 
called madmen (2 Kings 9. 11 ; Hos. 9. 7), and 
the verb "prophesy" came to be used in the sense 
of "rave" (i Sam. 18. 10). They were thus 
ecstatics, resembling to a certain extent modern 
dervishes and the ancient Greek worshipers of 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

Dionysus. They also bore some resemblance to 
the prophets of Baal as described in i Kings 
1 8. 25-29. The latter fact has led to the 
theory that prophecy was not an independent 
institution in Israel but was borrowed from 
the Canaanites. In support of this view it is 
claimed that the Hebrew word for ''prophet," 
nabij, was of foreign origin. But this claim 
is without adequate foundation. There is, it 
is true, no verbal root in Hebrew from which 
nabi could have been derived; but this is also 
true of many other Hebrew words, such as 
those for "blood" and "priest," which no one 
thinks of regarding as loan-words. Then, too, 
the name nabi is applied to a number of persons 
before the time of Samuel, such as Abraham 
(Gen. 20. 7, 17), Moses (Deut. 34. 10), Mir- 
iam (Exod. 15. 20), and Deborah (Judg. 
4. 4). This does not necessarily mean that these 
persons were called prophets in their own time. 
We may have here simply the view of a later 
writer. But his view would be significant as 
representing the thought of his own day. It is 
also in harmony with Amos 2. iif. and Jer. 7. 
25, where it is implied that there was a contin- 
uous succession of prophets from the time of 
Moses down. Further, there is no indication 
anywhere in the Old Testament that Hebrew 
prophecy was ever looked upon as having any 

3 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

connection whatsoever with the Canaanites. 
Everything points in the opposite direction. 
The prophets, for instance, are in several cases 
(Amos 2. II ; 2 Kings lo. 15^.; and Jer. 35) 
brought into close relation with the Nazirites 
and Rechabites, both of whom represented reac- 
tions against Canaanitic institutions rather than 
dependence upon them. Likewise, the prophetic 
dress, the hairy mantle, points back to the wilder- 
ness period. It is, then, in the highest degree 
probable that prophecy in Israel goes back to the 
very beginning of the nation's history. 

But while prophecy did not originate in the 
time of Samuel, it seems to have received a new 
impulse and to have undergone a marked develop- 
ment in his day. For one thing, it took on the 
character of a group movement. Previously, it 
seems to have been confined to individuals. Here 
and there a person was seized with the Spirit of 
God (compare Judg. 5. 12; 6. 34; 14. 6, 19). 
But in the time of Samuel whole groups of men 
were thus affected. The prophetic spirit became 
contagious. The reason for this new develop- 
ment was probably the national and religious 
crisis brought on by the victories of the Philis- 
tines. The ark had been captured, Shiloh dese- 
crated, and the land in large part subdued. It 
was natural that this critical state of affairs 
should awaken intense excitement, and that 

4 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

whole bodies of men should now be swept away 
by the same spirit of ecstasy which had hereto- 
fore laid hold only of individuals. Then, too, 
this group movement tended to make the prophets 
more aggressive. Previously they seem to have 
waited for people to call upon them, simply an- 
swering such questions as were asked. Now 
they take the offensive. They enter into the life 
of the people and seek to direct the course of 
events. They thus become a new and signifi- 
cant factor in the history of the nation. 

Furthermore, it seems not improbable that a 
change took place at this time in the content of 
their teaching. Previously they had dealt chiefly 
with the present; now they begin to deal more 
and more with the future, and not only with de- 
tails of the future, but with the whole future de- 
velopment of the kingdom of Jehovah. In a 
word, their message becomes eschatological. To 
some extent this outlook into the future is inher- 
ent in the very nature of religion, and so must 
have been at least implicit in the work of Moses. 
But the ecstatic character of the prophetic move- 
ment in the time of Samuel naturally tended to 
bring it into prominence. For ecstasy thrives on 
the contrast between the real and the ideal, and 
on the expectation of the speedy realization of 
the ideal. Traces of this early eschatology are 
probably to be found in Num. 23 and 24 ; 2 Sam. 

5 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

7. 8-16; and Gen. 49. 8-12. But the clearest evi- 
dence of its existence is furnished by the later 
written prophecies. These prophecies contain 
eschatological conceptions which were manifestly 
not original with the canonical prophets them- 
selves. They also contain allusions to eschato- 
logical ideas current among the people (Amos 5. 
18 ; Isa. 28. 15). The origin of these conceptions 
must, then, be found in the period anterior to the 
eighth century before Christ, and, if so, it is most 
naturally to be looked for in the early prophetic 
circles. 

During the two centuries intervening between 
Samuel and Elijah we have no reference to 
the prophetic bands. Nevertheless, during this 
period they seem to have grown in importance 
and influence. In the time of Elijah we find four 
hundred of them at the court of Ahab (i Kings 
22. 5fif.). The pious chamberlain, Obadiah, hid 
one hundred of them from the wrath of Jezebel 
(i Kings 18. 13). They were located at various 
places throughout the land — Gilgal, Bethel, 
Jericho, and Samaria. From being itinerant 
bands they had now become settled colonies. 
They were known as "sons of the prophets," 
which means that they formed guilds or corpora- 
tions. They lived together, had their meals in 
common, and some of them at least were married 
(2 Kings 4. 1-7, 38-41). They seem also to have 

6 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

been under the direction of men of superior spir- 
itual endowment, such as Elijah and Elisha. 
This no doubt tended to moderate their ecstatic 
excitement and to direct their energies along 
higher and more fruitful lines. 

One naturally wonders what the members of 
these prophetic guilds busied themselves with 
from day to day. They seem to have been sup- 
ported by the gifts of others (i Kings 14. 3; 
2 Kings 5. 15; 8, 9ff.; Amos 7. 12; Mic. 3, 5), 
so that they must have had most of their time to 
themselves. No doubt they devoted considerable 
attention to music and song and such other exer- 
cises as would prepare them to receive the word 
of Jehovah; for their chief function was to de- 
clare the divine will wherever and whenever it 
was called for or needed. It is probable also 
that, like the Christian monks, they interested 
themselves in literature. The history of the 
nation would naturally have its important les- 
sons for them. They therefore cherished the 
traditions handed down from the past. Then, 
too, they probably devoted themselves with spe- 
cial interest to the future, the development of the 
kingdom of God, the plan of Jehovah. This, 
indeed, seems to have been their peculiar sphere, 
the main theme of their reflections. 

Like all similar institutions, the prophetic 
guilds were exposed to the danger of corruption. 

7 r. 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

This grew partly out of the fact that they were 
dependent for their support upon the gifts of 
others. They were consequently in danger of 
delivering such messages as would serve their 
own selfish ends. To those who supplied their 
wants they cried, 'Teace," but against those who 
refused to do so they prepared war (Mic. 3. 5). 
This seems to have been a serious evil in the 
time of the canonical prophets, though, judging 
from the story of Gehazi (2 Kings 5. 2off.), it 
was probably not unknown in earlier times. 
Then, again, there was danger of formalism and 
professionalism. Prophecy had had its origin in 
intense earnestness. The ecstatic excitement of 
the early prophets had been, in large part at least, 
an expression of genuine enthusiasm. This was 
no doubt also the case with the later prophets in 
seasons of peril and special urgency. But at 
other times their excited demeanor was prob- 
ably cultivated in an artificial way and so came to 
be chiefly neurotic in character with little if any 
spiritual element in it. The prophetic order thus 
deteriorated, losing the moral power it once 
possessed. 

Hence when we come to the eighth century we 
find a sharp cleavage in the ranks of the prophets. 
A foreshadowing of this cleavage appears in the 
case of Micaiah and the four hundred prophets 
who gathered about Ahab (i Kings 22. 5ff.). 

8 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

But not until a century later did the cleavage 
become serious. It then gave rise to what are 
known as the false prophets, who are referred to 
again and again in the prophetic books. These 
prophets are commonly opposed to the canonical 
prophets, but this does not mean that they 
embraced all of the lower rank of prophets. 
Many of the rank and file of the prophetic order 
were true prophets of Jehovah, and were ready 
to seal with their blood their loyalty to the truth 
(2 Kings 9. 7; 21. 10-16; Jer. 26. 20-23). As 
over against these, however, there were large 
numbers who fell under the baneful influences 
of professionalism, divining for money, and still 
others who unconsciously yielded to the dominant 
national spirit, allowing themselves to be blinded 
by the hopes and wishes of the people. 

Prophets of this type naturally contradicted 
the gloomy messages of the canonical prophets, 
announcing peace when there was no peace and 
encouraging hope when there was no hope. 
Hence they are called false prophets. This, how- 
ever, does not mean that they were intentional 
deceivers. They were, rather, self -deceived. 
This was possible because true prophecy had in 
the course of centuries undergone a change. At 
the outset it was both national and ethical. Later 
it became almost exclusively ethical. But this 
change was not accepted by all the prophets; 

9 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

many reacted against its apparently antinational 
tendency, and in so doing were perfectly sincere. 
While, then, they were really prophesying ''out 
of their own heart," and following their own 
spirit without having seen anything (Ezek. 13. 
2ff. ), they themselves thought they were declar- 
ing the true word of Jehovah. It was so in the 
case of the four hundred prophets who encour- 
aged Ahab to go up to Ramoth-Gilead against the 
Syrians — a fact which Micaiah himself acknowl- 
edges in an indirect way by ascribing their mes- 
sage to a lying spirit which Jehovah had placed 
in their mouth (i Kings 22. 22). It was prob- 
ably so also in the case of Hananiah, who, in 
opposition to Jeremiah, incited revolt against 
Nebuchadrezzar, predicting that within two years 
the Babylonian yoke would be broken (Jer. 28). 
"If," says Ezekiel, "the prophet be deceived and 
speak a word, I, Jehovah, have deceived that 
prophet" (14. 9). It is impossible, then, to 
regard all the so-called false prophets as 
impostors. They, rather, represent a lower t3^pe 
of prophecy, which, like true prophecy, began 
with the fusion of national and ethical interests, 
but which, unlike true prophecy, allowed the 
national to predominate over the ethical. 

From the rank and file of the prophetic order 
we now turn to those individual prophets who 

10 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

stand out conspicuously in the history and liter- 
ature of Israel. These men are usually divided 
into two classes — the literary and preliterary 
prophets. The former correspond to our canon- 
ical prophets; the latter are the distinguished 
prophets of earlier times, of whom we have ac- 
counts in the historical books of the Old Testa- 
ment. We take up the latter first. 

Of the preliterary prophets there are two of 
special importance — Samuel and Elijah. To 
them we shall devote chief attention. But be- 
fore taking them up we need to consider the 
relation of Moses to prophecy. He is himself 
referred to as a prophet in Hos. 12. 13, and in 
Deut. 18. 15, 18 is spoken of as a representative 
of the highest type of a prophet. There can also 
be no doubt that he was imbued with the true 
prophetic spirit. In view of this, one might be 
inclined to class him with the preliterary prophets. 
But to do so would be to misrepresent his true 
historical position. The traditional view which 
distinguishes him from the prophets is justified. 
It was he who laid the foundation of Israel's 
national and religious life. Before his time the 
Israelites seem to have been polytheists. They 
worshiped nature gods. Moses established among 
them the worship of one God, Jehovah, who in 
a marvelous way had delivered them from the 
Egyptians and thus proven himself to be not only 

II 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

a God of nature but the God of history. Such 
a wonderful God naturally demanded from his 
people complete surrender and absolute obedience. 
His worship, therefore, was in essence ethical 
from the outset (Amos 2. 10; 5. 25; Hos. 2. 15 ; 
9. 10; Jer. 2. 2ff.). It was also imageless, and 
the conditions of the time made it centralized. 
We have consequently in the work of Moses the 
germ of the whole subsequent religious develop- 
ment in Israel. He was the great creative per- 
sonality in her history. He opened up the foun- 
tain from which the later stream of prophecy 
flowed forth. Or, to use a figure borrowed from 
Cornill, the prophets simply put out at interest 
the pound they inherited from Moses. His work 
was the presupposition of theirs. 

The figure of Samuel stands out conspicuously 
in the prophetic narratives of the Old Testament. 
But it is not easy to determine exactly in what 
his significance lay. Some have tried to reduce 
him to a "seer of a small town, known only as a 
clairvoyant, whose information concerning lost 
or strayed property was reliable." But his repu- 
tation in later times makes it incredible that 
he should have been such an humble personage. 
Moreover, there are indications in the very ear- 
liest narratives (i Sam. 9. i to 10. 15; 11. 1-16) 
that in his own time he was widely known and 
had a mission to the nation as well as to individ- 

12 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

uals. Saul's uncle, for instance, only needs to 
hear his name mentioned in order to be at once 
interested in what he had said to his nephew 
(i Sam. 10. I4f.). The very fact also that Sam- 
uel anointed Saul to be king is evidence that his 
own interests were by no means local and private 
(i Sam. 9. II ; 10. i). Accordingly it is probable 
that the later representations of him and his 
work (2 Sam. 3. 19^.; 7; 8; 10. 17-27; 12; 
15) have a substantial historical basis. In 
any case, the times in which he lived were 
critical. The very existence of the nation 
was at stake. And under those circumstances 
it was he who first saw the need of a mon- 
archy as the one way of saving Israel politi- 
cally, and who pointed out the new king. He 
thus introduced a new era in the history of Israel. 
He brought in a new form of government, and 
in the person of the king gave an outward and 
visible expression to the religious unity of the 
people. 

Much stress has been laid upon an annotation 
found in i Sam. 9. 9, which originally belonged 
after verse 11. We here read that "Beforetime 
in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, 
thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer : for 
he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime 
called a Seer." From this it is inferred that the 
name "prophet" was not applied to Samuel in 

13 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

his own day. He was then called a seer. And 
it is true that he is to be distinguished from the 
members of the prophetic bands of his day. He 
was a different kind of person. None of their 
wild frenzy belonged to him. He was a calm, 
clear-sighted man. But it does not follow from 
the above annotation that he was not called a 
prophet (nabi) by the people of his own time. 
All that can be justly deduced from this verse 
is that in the annotator's day it was customary 
to say *'Let us go to the prophet," and not ''Let 
us go to the seer." But that the expression, ''Let 
us go to the prophet," was not used in Samuel's 
time is nowhere stated. The probability, as we 
have already seen, is that the name nabi was in 
current use before his day, and was on occasion 
applied to him as well as to other seers. 

Exactty what relation Samuel sustained to the 
prophetic bands of his time is not certain. In 
one passage (i Sam. 19. 18-24) he is represented 
as standing at their head, but this passage is 
usually regarded as belonging to a late date and 
as not strictly historical. That he, however, had 
some connection with them is a priori probable. 
He may to some extent have directed their activ- 
ities, as did Elijah and Elisha later, and so may 
have used them in furthering his own national 
purposes. In any case, he must have had some 
way of bringing his influence to bea^ upon the 

14 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

religious life of his day. For the situation was 
critical religiously as well as politically. Under 
the depressing influence of PhiHstine overlord- 
ship there was danger of syncretism and apostasy 
from Jehovah. Some powerful stimulus was 
needed to guard against these dangers. And if 
the later traditions concerning Samuel have any 
basis in fact, there can be no doubt that he to a 
large extent furnished this stimulus, and along 
with it quickened the national consciousness to 
a point where it was ready to accept the leader- 
ship of Saul and to present a united front against 
the Philistine oppressor. 

Between the time of Samuel and that of 
Elijah we have the prophets Nathan, Gad, and 
Ahijah, and in Elijah's own time Micaiah. 
These men might be called the minor prophets 
of the preliterary period. Very little is recorded 
of them. But from what has come down to us 
it is clear that they stood as representatives of 
the morals, customs, and faith of the past. They 
watched with suspicion the new developments in 
the monarchy, as Samuel also seems to have done 
(i Sam. 15). Anything that indicated a declin- 
ing faith in Jehovah they condemned. For this 
reason Gad denounced the census taken by David 
(2 Sam. 24). He saw in it a tendency on the 
part of the king to trust unduly in his newly won 
political power. For this reason, also, Ahijah 

15 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

incited Jeroboam tO' revolt and predicted the 
division of the monarchy, (i Kings ii. 29ft.) 
This division was a penalty for the worldly and 
idolatrous tendencies of Solomon's reign. We 
likewise have the same loyalty to the righteous 
God of the fathers in Nathan's denunciation of 
the sin of David (2 Sam. 12). And Micaiah's 
repeated messages of evil are to be understood as 
expressions of antagonism to Ahab's violations 
of established right and faith. 

It is in Elijah, however, that this attitude of 
the preliterary prophets comes to its fullest and 
most striking expression. 

There are three scenes in his life that stand 
out conspicuously: first, his conflict with Jezebel 
and the prophets of Baal (i Kings 18. 16-46); 
second, his journey to Horeb the mount of God 
(i Kings 19. 1-18) ; and third, his announcement 
of doom upon the royal house because of the 
judicial murder of Naboth (i Kings 21). In 
all of these he testifies his loyalty to the God of 
Sinai. In his conflict with the queen he reasserts 
the ancient jealousy of Jehovah, a jealousy that 
would brook no other god in Israel, and, least of 
all, a nature-god like the Tyrian Baal. In his de- 
nunciation of the murder of Naboth he pro- 
claims again the righteousness of the God of 
the fathers, a righteousness that guards the inter- 
ests of all and knows no distinction between high 

16 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

and low, but requires obedience from all alike. 
And by his journey to the mount of God he de- 
clares symbolically that the aim of all his work 
is to defend and revive the law and faith of Sinai. 
But while Elijah thus harks back to the foun- 
der of Israel's religion, his own teaching was not 
a mere revival of that of Moses. Altered con- 
ditions demanded an altered message. And not 
only was this the case. Religious thought in 
Israel during the intervening centuries had not 
been at a standstill. The prophets had been con- 
servers of the past, but they had also been crea- 
tors of new conceptions of the future. Sinai 
had not been to them a Jacob's pillow to sleep 
upon, but a Jacob's ladder to climb by. Conse- 
quently, we are not surprised to find new ele- 
ments in the teaching of Elijah. Unfortunately, 
the reports of his words are extremely meager. 
But, meager as they are, they show the direction 
of his thought. For one thing, he declares that 
a great judgment is to come upon the people be- 
cause of their apostasy. When this judgment 
has done its work a mere remnant will be left. 
This was the content of the ''still small voice" 
that came to the prophet at Horeb (i Kings 19. 
9-18). And from the fact that the king calls 
him the ''troubler of Israel" (i Kings 18. 17) it 
may be inferred that this message of doom was 
one that fell frequently from his lips. It is also 

17 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

probable that it did not stand alone but formed 
a part of a larger conception, that of a plan of 
God, an idea that was basal in the thought of the 
canonical prophets. 

But even more significant than Elijah's message 
of doom was his attitude toward Baal. It is 
evident from the ridicule the prophet pours upon 
Baal that he does not believe in his existence 
(i Kings i8. 27). Baal is a mere shadow. And 
if so, the conclusion is inevitable that all other 
gods, except Jehovah, are mere shadows. They 
have no real existence. Jehovah is God alone. 
Elijah himself probably did not draw this theo- 
retical conclusion. The problem that confronted 
him was a practical one. The worship of the 
Tyrian Baal had been introduced into Israel and 
had aroused the wrath of Jehovah. It satisfied 
the prophet's purpose, therefore, to declare that 
Baal was no god. But had other gods appeared 
in Israel, it is certain that he would have made 
the same declaration concerning them, for he 
had the firm inner conviction that there was no 
god but Jehovah (i Kings 18. 21). This con- 
viction was, indeed, implicit in the teaching of 
Moses. But a special occasion was needed to 
call it forth, and this occasion was furnished by 
the apostasy in the time of Ahab. We conclude, 
consequently, that Elijah was the first in whom 
the practical monotheistic conviction came to clear 

18 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

expression. He elevated Jehovah above all other 
gods into a category by himself. And not only 
that: he also elevated him so completely above 
his own people that their fortunes were seen to 
be wholly subordinate to his purposes. He does 
not exist for their sakes, but they exist for his 
sake. Loyalty to him is more important than the 
mere existence of the nation. This position 
taken by Elijah is the high point of preliterary 
prophecy. It implies that Mosaism is in princi- 
ple a world-religion. 

Important, however, as is the place of Elijah 
in the history of religion, he does not himself 
seem to have accomplished much in the way of 
external reform. This task he committed tO' his 
successor, Elisha, who was a man of more practi- 
cal turn of mind. Elisha, for instance, did not 
hesitate to resort to conspiracy to accomplish his 
ends (2 Kings 9. iff.). He instigated the 
bloody revolution of Jehu, and thus swept the 
house of Ahab from the throne and extirpated 
the worship of the Tyrian Baal from Israel. 

We turn now to the literary prophets. This 
designation of the canonical prophets is mis- 
leading in so far at it tends to create the impres- 
sion that they were writers rather than men of 
action. So far as the form of prophetic activity 
is concerned, it was not essentially different in 

19 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

their case from what it had been in the case of 
their predecessors. Speech and action were quite 
as characteristic of them as of the earlier prophets. 
That they reduced their sermons to writing was 
simply incidental to their ministry. But it proved 
to be a very important incident. No single fact 
connected with the development of prophecy was« 
more significant for the future of religion in 
Israel. 

Why written prophecy originated in the eighth 
century before Christ is a question to which dif- 
ferent answers have been given. Some ascribe it 
to the literary tendency of the age. Others 
attribute it to the failure of the prophets to ac- 
complish what they desired by the spoken word. 
'Tt must," says Budde, ''have been their very ill 
success, the unbelief of the people, that above all 
else compelled them to resort to the pen." In both 
of these answers there is more or less of truth. 
As literature came to be generally cultivated and 
men came to take interest and pride in the pro- 
ducts of the pen, it was inevitable that the 
prophets, who were conscious of having a vital 
message to their countrymen, should not content 
themselves with the spoken word, but should re- 
duce their utterances to written form. Then, too, 
the unbelief of the people furnished them a 
specific occasion for so doing. This motive was 
not wholly lacking before their time, as is clear 

20 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

from the cases of Elijah and Micaiah; and it is 
by no means improbable that before the time of 
Amos there were written prophecies which have 
been lost. But in the eighth century the unbelief 
of the people seems to have been more general 
and more aggressive than heretofore. Evidence 
of this is furnished by the number and influence 
of the false prophets. It was natural, as a result, 
that the true prophets like Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, 
and Jeremiah should turn to the future for vindi- 
cation (Isa. 30. 8f.), and also entertain the hope 
that the written word might eventually accom- 
plish what the spoken word had failed to achieve 
(Jer. 36. 3). 

Another and more important question with 
reference to the eighth-century prophets has to 
do with the relation of their teaching to that of 
their predecessors. It is evident to the most cas.- 
ual reader that we have in Amos, Hosea, and 
Isaiah a very different emphasis from that which 
we find in the accounts of the ninth-century 
prophets. The great question at issue in the time 
of Elijah was whether Jehovah, and he alone, 
was to be worshiped in Israel. The problem, on 
the other hand, with which the literary prophets 
deal is the question how he is to be worshiped. 
This change of emphasis was perhaps due to the 
fact that the uprooting of Baal worship did not 
bring about the improvement expected. Indeed, 

21 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

from the material point of view, conditions soon 
afterward grew worse. Israel suffered her deep- 
est abasement at the hands of Syria in the reigns 
of Jehu and Jehoahaz. Hence it may naturally 
have been concluded that what Jehovah required 
of Israel was not only that he, and he only, be 
worshiped; but that he be worshiped in the right 
way. Not sacrifices and burnt offerings, but good- 
ness and the knowledge of God was what he de- 
manded. Almost exclusive stress was conse- 
quently placed by the eighth-century prophets 
upon righteousness as the one condition of salva- 
tion. 

This possible historical connection between the 
literary and preliterary prophets is, however, a 
point of subordinate interest. The important 
question relates to the degree of originality to be 
ascribed to the literary prophets. How far does 
their teaching mark an advance beyond that of 
their predecessors? The tendency among Old 
Testament scholars of the past generation has 
been to exalt the prophets of the eighth century 
far above their predecessors and to regard them 
as the real creators of the higher spiritual element 
in Israel's religion. But this view is a mistaken 
conclusion drawn from the fact that we have a 
far more intimate knowledge of the teaching of 
the literary prophets than of that of their pre- 
decessors. The accounts of the earlier prophets in 

22 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

the historical books are utterly inadequate. This 
is evident from what is recorded in Second Kings 
concerning the eighth-century prophets. Amos, 
Hosea, and Micah are not even mentioned, and 
the account of Isaiah fails altogether to give us 
a proper insight into the lofty spirituality of his 
thought. We cannot, as a consequence, fairly 
judge the teaching of the preliterary prophets by 
what we find in the historical books. If they had 
left us written reports of their utterances, the 
probability is we would find that they anticipated 
to a large extent the teaching of their literary 
successors. Such is certainly the conclusion 
favored by a study of the canonical prophets 
themselves. They betray no consciousness of 
being innovators. They give no indication of 
any break with the past. Indeed, the very re- 
verse is the case. Theirs are ''the old paths, 
where is the good way" (Jer. 6. i6). They are 
by nature conservative, as are all deeply religious 
men. What they aim to do is not to introduce 
new ideas but simply to call the people back to 
their old allegiance to Jehovah. In a word, they 
are reformers. 

But it does not follow from this that there was 
nothing new in their teaching. All great reform- 
ers are also creative geniuses. The adaptation 
of any great and pregnant truth of the past to 
new conditions always requires original insight. 

23 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

So it was with the eighth-centui-y prophets. 
They attached themselves unequivocally to the 
past. At the same time their teaching marked 
an important step forward. This forward step 
did not consist so much in the introduction of 
new ideas as in the ethical deepening and clearer 
definition of ideas and convictions already pres- 
ent. It was so with their message of doom, with 
their conception of the ethical character of tme 
religion, and with their monotheism. These 
ideas were not new, but they were given a clear- 
ness of expression, a depth of interpretation, and 
a wideness of application that had been unknown 
before. Consequently, we have in the work of 
the eighth-centuiy prophets a notable advance in 
the direction of a complete release of Israelitic 
religion from national entanglements and its pre- 
paration for a world-wide mission. But this 
development was all so natural that there was 
no conscious break with the past. Had a pious 
Israelite of earlier times been permitted to read 
the prophecies of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, he 
would have said, as did a Mohammedan woman 
after reading a Christian book" of devotion, 
"Why, that is what I have been trying to say all 
my Hfe." Literary prophecy simply voiced the 
true piety of the past, brought it to self -conscious- 
ness, and gave it clearness of expression. It was 
thus merely the logical outcome of that higher 

24 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

faith which had been current in Israel from the 
time of Moses down. This fact, however, de- 
tracts httle, if any, from its significance. The 
appearance of the Hterary prophets marks the 
most important epoch in Israel's history next to 
that of Moses. 

The enlargement of religious outlook intro- 
duced by the eighth-century prophets was closely 
connected with the political developments of the 
time, and from one point of view may be re- 
garded as evoked by them. Not until Assyria 
appeared on the borders of Israel did it become a 
practical necessity to relate the power of Jehovah 
to the great world-empires, and not until then 
could the idea of a world-religion have naturally 
taken root in prophetic thought. But from an- 
other point of view, the appearance of the idea 
of the universal sway of Jehovah stands in strik- 
ing contrast with the political developments of 
the time. Had something approaching monothe- 
ism appeared in Egypt and Assyria, it would not 
have been strange, for these kingdoms were 
practically world-powers, and under those cir- 
cumstances it would have been only natural for 
the religious teachers of either land to conclude 
that their chief god was God of all the world. 
But that this idea should appear in two such small 
kingdoms as Israel and Judah, and that it should 
be proclaimed in them with such perfect confi- 

25 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

dence at the very time they were going down to 
their ruin, is one of the most remarkable facts in 
the religious history of mankind. It has no 
parallel, and is so contrary to what we should 
naturally expect from the human mind and heart 
that one can hardly resist the conviction that it 
must to a special degree have been due to the 
Spirit of the living God. 

The literary prophets may be conveniently ar- 
ranged in three groups : first, those who appeared 
shortly before the fall of Samaria in B. C. 721 ; 
second, those who prophesied shortly before the 
fall of Jerusalem in B. C. 586; and, third, the 
prophets of the Restoration and the postexilic 
period. To the first class belong Amos, Hosea, 
Isaiah, and Micah. Of these the first three are 
among the greatest of the prophets. Each repre- 
sents an important aspect of God's revelation of 
himself. Micah, on the other hand, furnishes an 
instructive supplement to their teaching, but does 
not equal any one of them in importance. Still 
it is in his book that we have one of the greatest 
sayings of the Old Testament — a saying that 
sums up the teaching of his three contemporaries 
— ^"What doth the Lord require of thee, but to 
do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
with thy God?" (6. 8.) The second group of 
prophets includes Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zephaniah, 
Nahum, and Habakkuk. These men witnessed 
26 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

the decline and fall of Assyria and the rise of 
the new Babylonian empire. They also stood on 
the brink of the dissolution of their own national 
life. It was natural, therefore, that the two 
greatest of them, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, should 
lay stress upon those aspects of their religion 
which would persist after the fall of the nation, 
namely, personal piety and individual responsi- 
bility. The other three represent interesting 
side-currents in the life and thought of the people 
— Zephaniah the apocalyptic tendency, Nahum 
the anti foreign feeling, and Habakkuk the begin- 
ning of speculation in Israel; but none of them is 
of special significance. To' the third group belong 
Deutero-Isaiah (Isa. 40 to 66), Haggai, Zecha- 
riah, Malachi, Obadiah, Joel, and Jonah. Daniel 
is a late apocalypse (B. C. 165), and is not 
classed with the prophets in the Hebrew Bible. 
Of this group Deutero-Isaiah is by far the most 
important. In him the universal destination of 
Israel's religion received its clearest expression, 
and with him the mission proper of prophecy 
ceased. Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi might 
still deal in a true prophetic spirit with the needs 
of the restored community; the author of Jonah 
might in a heart-moving narrative rebuke Israel 
for her reluctance in carrying out her divinely 
appointed mission to the world ; and in Obadiah 
and Joel the old antiforeign feeling of the Jews 

27 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

and their faith in a great day of Jehovah might 
again receive expression. But nothing especially 
significant was thus added to the legacy which 
Deutero-Isaiah and those who preceded him had 
left to subsequent generations. And, finally, the 
voice of the true prophet ceased to be heard in 
Israel (Psa. 74. 9). 

This completes our survey of the history of 
prophecy. We now pass to the discussion of its 
nature. 

Nature of Prophecy 

Etymology has frequently been appealed to to 
detemiine the nature of prophecy, but it has not 
thrown much light upon the subject. The origi- 
nal meaning of the root from which the Hebrew 
word for "prophet" was derived is uncertain. A 
common theory is that it meant to ''bubble" or 
*'gush," the reference being to the excited or 
frenzied manner of speech of the early prophet. 
A parallel to this, it is claimed, is found in the 
Hebrew word hittiph, which is sometimes trans- 
lated ''prophesy," but primarily meant "to let 
drop." What the early prophets, we are told, 
let drop, was "slaver, as is usual with epileptics 
and madmen." But this derivation of the word 
nahi is in itself highly dubious, and in any case 
gives us no insight into the character of the later 
prophets. More significant and more probable 

28 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

is the view which connects the word with the 
Assyrian verb nabu, meaning ''to call," or 
"name," and so "announce." The nabu, or 
prophet, was then, the "announcer," or "herald," 
of the divine will. This derivation is confirmed 
to some extent by the Arabic, and furthermore 
expresses an essential characteristic of the 
prophet as he is known to us in history. 

There are a number of other terms used in the 
Old Testament to designate a prophet. He is 
called a "man of God" (i Sam. 9. 6; i Kings 
17. 18), a "servant" of God, or Jehovah (i 
Chron. 6. 49; i Kings 18. 36; Isa. 20. 3), a 
"messenger" of Jehovah (Isa. 42. 19), an "in- 
terpreter" (Isa. 43. 2y), a "seer" (i Sam. 9. 9), 
and a "watchman" (Ezek. 3. 17). These differ- 
ent terms all imply a close relation of the prophet 
to the Deity, each term expressing some aspect 
of that relationship, or of the prophet's mission, 
or of the way he attained tO' his religious insight. 
But the central idea contained in them all taken 
together is the same as that which we have just 
seen probably underlay the word nabi: the 
prophet was a mediator by speech between man 
and God. 

It is worth noting in this connection that none 
of these terms expresses distinctly the idea of 
prediction. 

This was also true of the English word 
29 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

"prophet" several centuries ago. In the time of 
EHzabeth the regular church services were spoken 
of as "prophesyings." And in the seventeenth 
century Jeremy Taylor wrote a work entitled 
"The Liberty of Prophesying," by which he 
meant the liberty of preaching. The prefix "pro" 
in the word "prophet" does not mean "before- 
hand," as in such words as "progress" and "pro- 
cession," but "instead of," as in the word "pro- 
noun." The prophet, then, was not primarily 
one who foretold events, but one who spoke in 
God's stead. This view of the prophet is very 
clearly expressed in Exod. 7. i, where Jehovah 
declares to Moses that he is to be as God to 
Pharaoh and that Aaron his brother is to be his 
prophet, that is, his spokesman (compare Exod. 
4. 16). The idea of prediction, therefore, was 
manifestly a subordinate one in the Hebrew con- 
ception of prophecy. According to the Old 
Testament, the prophet was primarily and essen- 
tially a speaker for God. It was his function to 
declare to men the divine will and purpose. 
"Surely," says Amos (3. 7), "the Lord Jehovah 
will do nothing, except he reveal his secret unto 
his servants the prophets." This secret, it is 
true, referred not infrequently to the future. But 
it was not the future as an unrelated event or 
group of events that was revealed to the prophets. 
It was the future as the expression and outcome 

30 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

of the divine will and character. So' that when 
future events were foretold by the prophets the 
significant thing in the prediction was not the 
mere unveiling of the future, but the moral 
quality of the prediction. 

We come here upon the fundamental differ- 
ence between the Hebrew prophet and the heathen 
diviner. But before we dwell further upon this 
point it will be instructive to consider the rela- 
tion of these two personages to each other. There 
is, as we have seen, a common theory that proph- 
ecy was imported into Israel from without, that 
it was borrowed from the Canaanites. This 
theory we have rejected. But at the same time 
there can be no doubt that there was a consider- 
able resemblance between the Israelitic prophets 
and those of other nations. This resemblance is 
implied in their common name. It is also im- 
plied in the fact that the heathen soothsayer 
Balaam is represented as a truly inspired prophet 
of Jehovah. 

But heathen divination is a complex phenome- 
non, and must be analyzed before a true com- 
parison between it and Hebrew prophecy can be 
made. It has been customary since ancient times 
to distinguish between artificial, or mediate, divi- 
nation on the one hand and natural, or immediate, 
on the other. By ''artificial," or "mediate," divi- 
nation is meant the effort to ascertain the divine 

31 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

will by means of external signs and omens. 
Liver inspection was espeoially common in Baby- 
lonia, but there, as elsewhere, many other 
methods were also employed, such as cup-divina- 
tion, observation of the heavens, and the casting 
of lots. Furthermore, all events and phenomena 
that departed in the least degree from the ordi- 
nary course of things were supposed to have 
some mysterious significance, and in accordance 
with this supposition were interpreted by the 
diviners. It was this type of divination that was 
most common in the heathen world. Traces of 
it are also tO' be found in the Old Testament. We 
have there the casting of lots, and in the case of 
Joseph an instance of cup-divination (Gen. 44. 
5). But the prophets themselves have nothing 
to do with ''artificial" divination. They utterly 
spurn it. 

By "natural," or "immediate," divination is 
meant the determination of the divine will or 
attainment of superhuman knowledge by means 
of dreams, visions, and the utterances of persons 
in a state of ecstasy. In these instances God is 
supposed to speak directly to the minds of men 
instead of through outward signs. Dreams are 
even yet mysterious in their origin ; consequently, 
it is not strange that they should in ancient times 
have been looked upon as divine indications of 
good or evil fortune. Such significance was gen- 

32 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

erally attributed to them by heathen peoples ; and 
traces of the same view appear also in the Old 
Testament in the cases of Jacob, Joseph, Samuel, 
Solomon, and Daniel. Indeed, dreams seem to 
have been one of the most commonly accepted 
methods by means of which God was supposed 
to reveal himself in Israel (Num. 12. 6; Job 33. 
I4ff. ; Joel 2. 28). But however common this 
view may have been among the rank and file 
of the prophets, the literary prophets themselves 
stood above it. Of none of them is it recorded 
that he received his message in a dream. On the 
contrary, Jeremiah disparages altogether the use 
of dreams as a means of revelation, and estab- 
lishes a distinct contrast between the dreaming 
of dreams and the reception of the true word of 
Jehovah (23. 28). 

Visions and states of ecstasy, on the other 
hand, were not unknown in the experiences of 
even the greatest of the prophets. Originally it 
would seem that seers and ecstatics were clearly 
differentiated from each other. The seers were 
men who had the gift of clairvoyance. Through 
vision and audition the Deity manifested himself 
to them and revealed to them things hidden from 
the sense-bound minds of men. Such persons as 
these figured in the ancient religions generally, 
but they were not at all so common as the inter- 
preters of dreams, astrologers, and others who 

33 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

sought by signs and omens to unveil the future 
or secure superhuman guidance. To this class 
belonged Balaam, who is described as one 'Vho 
heareth the words of God, who seeth the vision 
of the Almighty, falling down and having his 
eyes open" (Num. 24. 4). Samuel also was a 
seer; indeed, the only Israelitic seer of whom we 
have any detailed account in the historical books. 
Of him it was currently reported that he was a 
man held in honor, and that everything that he 
said came surely to pass (i Sam. 9. 6). 

The ecstatics, as distinguished from the seers, 
were men who allowed themselves by music or 
otherwise to be worked up into an intense state 
of excitement, from the effects of which they 
lost either their normal self-control or self-con- 
sciousness. In this condition of holy frenzy it 
was supposed that they were possessed of the 
Spirit of God. Hence, whatever they uttered in 
such a state was thought to have oracular signi- 
ficance. Phenomena of this kind have appeared 
throughout the whole history of religion. They 
were present, as we have seen, in ancient Phoe- 
nicia and in early Israel. So prominent a feature, 
indeed, did they form in the life of the early 
prophetic bands that for centuries afterward the 
idea of madness continued to be linked with that 
of prophecy (2 Kings 9. 11; Hos. 9. 7; Jer. 29. 
26). 

34 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

But while the seer and ecstatic seem thus to 
have been originally distinct, they must have both 
had the same high-strung nervous organization, 
with a strong leaning toward the mystical and 
religious. When they came together it was natu- 
ral that they should mutually influence each other 
and that the qualities of the one should tend 
gradually to coalesce with those of the other. 
This, at any rate, is what seems to have taken 
place in Israel, the result being the production of 
a new type of prophet, one to whom no complete 
analogue is to be found among other peoples. 
The seer felt the contagion of the ecstatic's in- 
tensity and passion. He ceased to wait for others 
to call upon him. He devoted himself no longer 
merely to such individual items of interest as 
were brought to his attention. His activity be- 
came continuous and aggressive. He threw him- 
self into the midst of the life of the people, seek- 
ing with all the power at his command to stir 
them up to meet whatever emergency confronted 
them. The ecstatic on the other hand surren- 
dered himself to the direction and restraint of the 
seer, subjecting himself to such discipline as the 
finer spiritual sense of the seer dictated. Passion 
and insight thus combined to produce the later 
Hebrew prophet. The wild frenzy of the ecstatic 
vanished. The visions of the seer continued, it 
is true, but gradually lost their significance. They 

35 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

ceased to be a test of inspiration. Indeed, in 
Num. 12. 6-8 it is clearly implied that visions and 
dreams are an imperfect medium of revelation. 
The highest type is that represented by Moses, 
to whom God spake mouth to mouth. Audition, 
rightly understood, seems to be involved in the 
very idea of prophecy and so remained a perma- 
nent characteristic of the Hebrew prophets. But 
more and more stress came to be placed on the 
content of the prophetic message. Not how 
God spake to the prophets but what he said to 
them came to be regarded as the essential thing. 
A fine illustration of this is furnished by Deut. 
13. 1-3, where it is declared that the message of 
a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, even if at- 
tested by a sign or miracle, is not to be accepted 
if at variance with one's fundamental religious 
convictions. The final test then of the truth of 
a prophetic utterance is to be found in the appeal 
which it makes to our religious nature. 

It is here that the vital difference between the 
Hebrew prophet and the heathen diviner is to be 
found. There is, as we have seen, at some 
points a certain resemblance between them. The 
Israelitic prophets belonged to the same general 
class of persons as the heathen seers and ecstatics. 
They had a gift akin to that of clairvoyance. 
Only on this assumption can their consciousness 
as revealed in their written prophecies be under- 

36 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

stood. But this was only an incidental feature 
of their work. The validity of their teaching 
was quite independent of it. And when we come 
to the content of their oracles as compared with 
the oracles of their heathen analogues, we find at 
once a world-wide difference. The heathen 
oracles that have come down to us are miscella- 
neous in character, dealing chiefly with subjects 
of a secular and practical nature. Wars, jour- 
neys, sicknesses, marriages, business enterprises, 
erection of houses — ^such are the topics dealt 
with. There is no underlying unity of thought, no 
constructive religious teaching. Hebrew proph- 
ecy, on the other hand, is based on definite princi- 
ples. It is a rational institution. Its teaching 
is self -consistent, coherent, and constructive. It 
presents to the world, in spite of all differences 
in detail, a unitary conception of things, the first 
philosophy or, if the expression be allowed, 
theology of history — sl theology, furthermore, 
which in its main outlines is still the faith of the 
leading races of the world. 

A few years ago something of a sensation 
was created by Edward Meyer, of Berlin, who 
claimed to have discovered in certain Egyptian 
papyri evidence that an eschatological scheme, 
in all its essential features the same as that of 
the Hebrew prophets, was current in Egypt as 
early as B. C. 2000: "first a period of severe 

37 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

affliction, the destruction of the government, the 
desolation of the land and its sanctuaries; then 
the glory of a Messianic kingdom under a 
righteous and God-beloved king of the ancient 
legitimate dynasty, to w^hom all peoples are sub- 
ject." But subsequent investigation has shown 
that Meyer's interpretation of his Egyptian texts 
was hasty, that they say nothing about a Mes- 
siah, and that they simply describe a national 
catastrophe which is to be followed by a period 
of blessing and prosperity. Of such an idea as 
that of a plan of God, or that of his moral gov- 
ernment of the world, or that of the coming 
of his kingdom, they do not furnish the slightest 
trace. These ideas are the unique product of 
Hebrew prophecy. Heathen divination nowhere 
provides a parallel to them. 

Still Bernhard Stade has defined prophecy as 
a "branch of manticism." If this be correct, we 
have here a case where the branch is far more 
important than the tree, and bears a very differ- 
ent kind of fruit. The fact is that it is only in 
a superficial way that prophecy is connected with 
manticism, or divination. We can trace the his- 
tory of prophecy back to its roots in divination. 
But this certainly does not make the two identi- 
cal. Institutions are to be judged not by their 
roots but by their fruits. And so judged, 
prophecy must be declared to have only the 

38 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

remotest relation to divination. The two stand 
at almost opposite poles. Such also is the judg- 
ment of Scripture. Isaiah (2. 6; 8. 19) con- 
demns 'the practice of divination in Israel as one 
of the grounds for her rejection by Jehovah, and 
Deut. 18. 9-18 denounces every kind of diviner 
as an abomination unto Jehovah, declaring that 
in Israel the place of the diviner is to be taken 
by that of the prophet. 

In view of this wide disparity between 
prophecy and divination, and especially in view 
of the superstitious or pathological character 
of the latter, it may at first seem strange that 
prophecy should ever have had any connection 
with it whatsoever. We are, it is true, familiar 
with the idea that chemistry had its origin in 
alchemy and astronomy in astrology. But the 
relation of the prophet to the diviner is more 
intimate than this. It is not merely historical. 
There is between the two a certain mental resem- 
blance. A gift akin to that of clairvoyance was 
possessed by even the greatest of the prophets. 
To be sure, the cruder features of the heathen 
clairvoyant do not appear in the Israelitic 
prophet. The literary prophets, for instance, 
were not dependent for their messages upon 
visions. They "always retained a clear conscious- 
ness and distinct recollection of what they saw 
in spirit and what was said to them," and ''they 

39 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

never appeared before their auditors in a state 
of ecstasy." Plato's idea, that ''inspired and true 
divination is not attained by anyone in his full 
senses, but only when the power of thought is 
fettered by sleep or disease or some paroxysm 
of frenzy," does not apply to them. They 
received their messages, at least for the most 
part, and did their work when in the full posses- 
sion of their nonnal faculties. But after allow- 
ance has been made for all these differences, it 
is still true that something of the quality of the 
heathen seer clings to the Hebrew prophet. He 
had the power of presentiment, the faculty of 
peering into the future. He was to a certain 
extent what is to-day called a psychopath. 

This fact has not been altogether acceptable 
to the modern mind. Hence, some have sought 
to explain it away. They have accounted for the 
predictions of the prophets by ascribing them to 
an extraordinarily fine moral sense, which led the 
prophets to conclude that the sins of their own 
day must be punished by some great national 
calamity. But this theory does not fit in well 
with the language of the prophets. "Thus saith 
the Lord" and other expressions that imply 
direct communications from the Deity can hardly 
be regarded as purely figurative. Then, too, it 
fails to account for the periods of silence during 
which no significant prophet appeared. These 

40 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

periods, such as that during the reign of Manas- 
seh, called for the voice of judgment quite as 
much as other periods. It would seem, then, 
that something else besides the fine moral sense 
of the prophets must have been responsible for 
their public appearance. In this connection we 
may remind ourselves that the first group of 
literary prophets — ^Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and 
Micah — all appeared shortly before the fall of 
Samaria in B. C. 721 ; and that the second group 
of literary prophets — Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zepha- 
niah, Nahum, and Habakkuk — all appeared 
shortly before the fall of Jerusalem in B. C. 586. 
This suggests that it was their presentiment of 
an approaching danger, and not simply their 
moral judgment, that led to their messages of 
doom. And this conclusion is strongly favored 
by the prophetic oracles themselves. The 
prophets had premonitions of impending events. 
These premonitions they ascribed to the word 
of God. Exactly what their psychological state 
was when Jehovah, as they said, spake to them, 
we do not know. Stade has suggested that we 
have here a case of split-personality, ''the second 
I of the prophet taking the form of an object 
of religious faith." But this theory hardly solves 
the mystery of the prophetic consciousness, 
though it may indicate the form under which the 
divine word presented itself to the prophet's 

41 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

mind. Anyhow, it is certain that the prophets 
had intuitions and premonitions which they dis- 
tinguished from their own thoughts and ascribed 
to God (Jer. 42. 7). 

The clairvoyant quahty of the prophetic mind 
has no special interest for us to-day. What we 
look to the prophets for is moral instruction and 
inspiration. That they had a peculiar psycho- 
logical endowment which enabled them to hear 
voices and to peer into the future does not espe- 
cially concern us. Perhaps it would be some- 
thing of a relief to us if it should be proven that 
they were not so endowed. In any case, we are 
disposed to look upon this feature of their life 
and work as wholly incidental, if not accidental. 
God might, we think, have taken men without 
any such quality of mind, and so filled them with 
his spirit of righteousness and wisdom that they 
would have spoken with as much conviction and 
sense of authority as did our canonical prophets. 
But whatever may have been theoretically possi- 
ble, it is still true that God chose men of the 
other type as the chief organs of his self-revela- 
tion. Why he did so is a mystery of divine 
Providence, and perhaps will always remain such. 
One or two possible reasons, however, for the 
fact may be suggested. In the first place, men in 
that day were accustomed to look upon the mar- 
velous and extraordinary as the one way in 

42 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

which God manifested himself to men. Mental 
states of an abnormal or supernormal character 
were supposed to be especially clear indications 
of the Spirit's presence. Accordingly, it is not 
improbable that some unusual psychological 
experience was necessary at that time to create 
the conviction that a message had been received 
from God. The moral and spiritual nature was 
not yet sufficiently independent, was not yet sure 
enough of itself, to stand forth as the self-con- 
scious voice of God himself. The choice of seers 
and ecstatics as the mediums of divine revela- 
tion may therefore be regarded as an accommo- 
dation on the part of God to the imperfect 
spiritual development of the time. Moreover, 
the undoubted influence which the fulfillment of 
the prophets' predictions had upon the ultimate 
acceptance of their spiritual messages makes it 
impossible for us to escape the conviction that 
these predictions, however subordinate they may 
be from our modern point of view, still had their 
place in the true word of God. 

In the next place, this peculiar mental endow- 
ment was not characteristic of the prophets only. 
Many other great religious teachers have had it 
— Paul, for instance. This fact suggests that 
the capacity for visions and auditions may have 
had some close connection with the development 
of religion. It may have served the purpose of 

43 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

disengaging the moral and spiritual nature of 
men from its sense-bound environment, and so 
of enabling it to come to its full and independent 
expression. For in its last analysis what we 
have in prophecy is simply the moral deeps of 
human nature breaking forth into the stream of 
human life and thought. Up to this time the 
moral nature of men had been limited, hampered 
in its development. It needed the help of seers 
and visionaries in order to come to itself and to 
assert itself against the competing interests of 
life. The supernormal gifts, then, of the prophets 
served an important purpose. They helped, so 
to speak, to put the moral and spiritual nature 
of men upon its feet, helped it to take its rightful 
place in human life as the one absolutely authori- 
tative element in it. 

One of the most remarkable things about the 
prophets is that they themselves recognized fully 
this subsidiary character of their extraordinary 
experiences. By means of them they knew they 
had received an insight into things divine which 
the common run of men did not possess. They 
had entered into the "counsel" of God, the 
"secret" of God, the "plan" of God, the "ways" 
of God, the "thoughts" of God. A great variety 
of terms were used to express the content of the 
revelation made to them. Still they laid no stress 
upon these experiences as such. However "hid- 
44 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

den" from men in general the revelation might 
be, it was not esoteric in character. It did not 
require such supernormal experiences as they 
themselves had had in order to be appreciated. 
These experiences were special and of no abiding 
significance. The revelation itself, on the other 
hand, was adapted to all men; and it was so 
adapted because it was a true and lofty expres- 
sion of the common ethical and spiritual nature 
of man. Tertullian once said that "the human 
heart is naturally Christian." By this he meant 
that the Christian life is simply human nature 
at its best. And so it is with the teaching of the 
prophets. They introduced no "mysteries" into 
human life, nothing abnormal or supernormal. 
They simply took the profoundest elements in 
human nature, by divinely granted insight 
deduced their implications, and then gave to 
them a brilliant and abiding expression. In a 
word, they did for the moral and spiritual nature 
of man what the Greek philosophers did for the 
human intellect. 

The mention of the Greek philosophers sug- 
gests that they rather than the heathen diviners 
furnish the most instructive analogue to the 
Hebrew prophets. In its roots, prophecy is 
linked to divination, but in its fruits it bears a 
considerable resemblance to philosophy. These 

45 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

two movements — Hebrew prophecy and Greek 
philosophy — have been the great creative forces 
in the spiritual and intellectual history of man- 
kind. In method the two movements differ 
radically. 'The philosopher," as some one has 
put it, "moves toward God through the world 
and man; the prophet comes from God to the 
world and man. The one is in search for God ; 
the other is found of God; the one longs for 
certitude, the other has it." But this difference 
of method does not necessarily indicate a radical 
difference of source. It does not necessarily 
imply that the one movement was purely human 
and the other absolutely divine. Between the 
human and the divine there is no fixed line of 
demarcation. The two interpenetrate each other, 
and there is no way of completely separating 
them. Prophecy carries with it the idea of in- 
spiration and revelation, not because there is no 
human element in it, but because it is the out- 
growth of those loftiest elements of human 
nature which we instinctively and immediately 
associate with the idea of the Spirit of God. 
Philosophy, on the other hand, makes no claim 
to supernatural inspiration, not because there 
are no sparks of the divine in it, but because it 
is, for the most part, the outcome of that side 
of our nature which seems less closely linked 
with God. In prophecy it is preeminently the 

46 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

heart and conscience that speak to us, in 
philosophy the intellect. The difference, then, 
between the method of the prophet and that of 
the philosopher finds its justification in the com- 
mon conviction that the heart and conscience 
stand nearer to God than the intellect. God, 
therefore, it is believed, could speak more 
directly and distinctly through the intuitions of 
the Hebrew than the reason of the Greek. That 
this belief is correct cannot be demonstrated, but 
it is, nevertheless, an assumption that our nature, 
made as it is, can hardly escape. Were we pure 
intellects, "wholly brain," we would perhaps 
agree with Renan that '^the greatest miracle on 
record is Greece." But constituted as we are, 
with unutterable yearnings after God, with souls 
that reach out irresistibly after love and right- 
eousness, it is impossible that we should not see 
in the prophets of Israel and in Him who came 
to fulfill their work the supreme word of God. 

In spite, however, of this difference of method 
and character, Greek philosophy in its final out- 
come arrived at a view of the world essentially 
similar to that of the Hebrew prophets. This 
is a remarkable and significant fact, that the only 
philosophic movement in the world which has 
run its full course ended in a spiritual view of 
the universe. We have in this fact a striking 
testimony alike to the unity and the essential 
47 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

religiousness of human nature. Not only heart 
and conscience, but intellect as well, when it 
understands itself, turns inevitably toward God. 
There is, however, still a vital difference between 
the work of the prophet and that of the philoso- 
pher. The latter was never able to lay hold of 
the popular mind in the way that the prophet 
did. Some of the greatest of the Greek philoso- 
phers, for instance, protested against idolatry 
and denounced the use of images, but they 
made no impression on the popular religion. And 
so with the religious life as a whole; in spite 
of themselves the philosophers stood apart from 
it. They did not understand the secret of its 
power, and hence could do little to transform 
and elevate it. The prophets, on the other hand, 
were men of the people. No pride of intellect 
separated them from the mass of their country- 
men. They knew what religion was; they knew 
what it meant to the average man; they had 
themselves experienced its power; above all else 
they were themselves men of the Spirit. Hence 
it was possible for them to lay firm hold of the 
popular religion, shake out of it its heathenism, 
and still preserve it strong and vital. The 
trouble with all purely philosophic attempts to 
remedy the shortcomings of religion is that the 
cure, if insisted on, always kills the patient. A 
purely rationalistic religion is no religion at all. 

48 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

The great achievement of the prophets Hes in the 
fact that, while purifying and spirituaHzing reh- 
gion to a degree never before attained, they still 
preserved its pristine power. This fact, once for 
all, sets them on high above all philosophers and 
sages. 

But before we conclude our study of the 
nature of prophecy we must also distinguish the 
work of the prophet from that of two Old Testa- 
ment characters, the priest and the apocalyptist. 
Priests and prophets formed the two classes of 
religious leaders in Israel. Occasionally the two 
offices were combined in the same person, as 
in the case of Samuel, but usually they were kept 
distinct. The priests gradually became a closed 
order, becoming confined at first to a single 
tribe, that of Levi, and later to a particular 
family, the house of Aaron. The prophets, on 
the other hand, never became a caste. No man 
was a prophet by birth, but only by divine call. 
In function, also, the prophets and priests differed. 
The priests dealt chiefly with the institutional 
side of religion. Their duties were sacrificial 
and judicial (Deut 33. 10). It was their task 
to apply the law to concrete cases. The prophets, 
on the other hand, looked upon the law as a 
general rule of life, and sought to enforce its 
essential teaching. As Davidson has finely put 
it, *'They went down into its deeps and came up 

49 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

armed with its fundamental principle, the very 
concentration of its elements into one foniiula, 
the retributive righteousness of God; and with 
this terrible weapon they sought to curb and 
coerce the idolatrous and immoral leanings of 
their nation, and hold their hearts true to the 
allegiance of the living God." 

From these facts it follqws naturally that the 
priests were the conservative and the prophets 
the progressive force in the religious history of 
Israel. The great ideas of the Old Testament 
were not first embodied in the priestly law and 
later expounded and enforced by the prophets. 
The order was the reverse. First, the prophets 
gave expression to the great spiritual principles 
of Old Testament faith, and then later the 
priests reduced those principles to symbol and 
statute. Or, to put it differently, the prophets 
first moralized the popular religion, and then 
later the priests popularized the prophetic reli- 
gion by putting it in concrete and symbolic form. 
To have recognized and proven this fact is the 
greatest single achievement of modern Old 
Testament scholarship. Not until this was done 
was it possible to give to the prophets their true 
place in Israelitic history and really appreciate 
their unique character and epoch-making signifi- 
cance. 

Apocalyptic is -the foiTn of literature into 

50 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

which prophecy gradually changed and by which 
it was eventually succeeded. Illustrations of it 
are to be found in Ezekiel, Zechariah, and some 
of the other later prophetic writings; and the 
book of Daniel as a whole is an apocalypse. The 
apocalyptist is commonly supposed to differ from 
the prophet in four regards. First, his work is 
pseudepigraphic. Fie hides himself behind some 
distinguished seer of the past such as Enoch or 
Daniel, into whose mouth he puts his own words. 
The prophet, on the other hand, maintains and 
asserts his own individuality, conscious that in 
all that he says he is impelled by the Spirit of 
God. Secondly, the apocalyptist is a writer 
rather than a preacher. His messages are the 
product of the study rather than the arena. The 
reverse is the case with the prophet. He is 
primarily a preacher, a man of affairs in living 
contact with the world about him, and only inci- 
dentally an author. Thirdly, the apocalyptist is 
imitative. He simply takes the ideas handed 
down from the past and works them up into new 
forms. The prophet, on the other hand, is crea- 
tive. He is a pioneer in the kingdom of God, 
exploring new territory, originating new concep- 
tions. Fourthly, the interests of the apocalyptist 
are primarily eschatological. His eye is fixed 
on the future. He depicts the marvelous things 
that are soon to occur, and having no real knowl- 

51 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

edge of the world about him often represents them 
in a fantastic way. Not so, however, the prophet. 
His feet are planted on the earth. He knows 
the actual forces round about him, sees God in 
them, and so gives us what may be termed a 
historical or natural representation of the future. 
Such is the common characterization of the 
apocalyptist and prophet in their relation to each 
other; and in an abstract and ideal sense it may 
be accepted as correct. In reality, however, there 
was no such sharp antithesis between the prophet 
and the apocalyptist as is here implied. In every 
apocalyptist there was more or less of the 
prophet, and in every prophet more or less of 
the apocalyptist. This was especially true as 
regards eschatology, and true to a much larger 
extent than has commonly been supposed. The 
current view is that Old Testament eschatology 
grew up along with or as a result of the work of 
the literary prophets. It was, therefore, almost 
exclusively a characteristic of the later prophets 
and the apocalyptists. But this view has in 
recent years been shown to be incorrect. A group 
of German scholars, among whom Gunkel, 
Gressmann, and Sellin are the most prominent, 
have made it clear that the eschatology of the 
Old Testament, instead of being the product of 
literary prophecy, antedated it. Before the time 
of Amos there was in Israel a developed escha- 

52 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

tology. It was probably cultivated in the pro- 
phetic schools, and was more or less widely cur- 
rent among the people. 

This discovery is the most important recent 
contribution to the correct understanding of the 
literary prophets. It has given to them a new 
background, and has set their teaching in quite 
a new light. Not only is this true of individual 
passages, here and there, but also of their whole 
message. It is now clear that the prophets in 
their conception of the divine presence and 
operation in the world did not reckon simply 
with natural and historical forces. Nor did they 
address themselves to a people completely sunk 
in religious naturalism. There were circles in 
Israel in which the atmosphere was vibrant with 
fear and hope, groups of people who believed in 
the approach of a great day of Jehovah, a day 
of universal terror. On that day the nations of 
the world would be overthrown, but Israel, as 
the chosen of Jehovah, would be rescued. 

To people holding such beliefs it was that the 
literary prophets came with their message,' and 
to them they announced that the day of Jehovah 
was now at hand, and that, whatever it might 
mean to other nations, it was to be to Israel, not 
a day of salvation, but a day of doom. This 
doom was to be brought about by foreign inva- 
sion. But it was not to be simply a political 

53 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

catastrophe; it was to be a great crisis in the 
history of the whole world; it was to introduce 
a kind of final judgment, and so bring about the 
goal toward which the universal plan of God 
was moving. There was thus an eschatological 
element in it. The day of Jehovah was not 
simply a day of captivity for Israel, a day of 
punishment for her sins; it was the culmination 
of a divine plan that had significance for the 
entire world, the inauguration of a new era in 
the history of mankind. 

From this fact it is clear that Jehovah was 
regarded by the prophets not only as the God of 
history but also as the God of destiny. There 
was in his relation to Israel a superhistorical 
element. He represented to them not only the 
iron hand of historical necessity, but also the 
transcendent power of the eternal Judge and 
Ruler of men. Only as this truth is grasped are 
we able fully to appreciate the absoluteness of 
the prophet's message and the finality with which 
it was delivered. The prophet never spoke as 
a mere social reformer nor as a mere practical 
statesman. He never dealt with merely historical 
forces, for to the very core of his being he was 
a religious teacher. And religion by its very 
nature cannot be confined to the purely historical. 
Instinctively and irresistibly, it breaks through 
the confines of the temporal and empirical and 
54 



THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF PROPHECY 

lays hold of the eternal. In order, then, to un- 
derstand the teaching of the prophets, it is neces- 
sary to bear in mind the fact that from their 
point of view they were dealing with eternal 
issues. What death means to us to-day, the day 
of Jehovah meant to them. It was something 
final and eternally significant. It marked, not 
the end of everything, but the beginning of a 
new era, in which God would be present in a 
manner and to a degree that he had not been 
present before. 

From this it follows that the prophets were not 
simply preachers of repenjtance. They were also 
the heralds of a new kingdom. It was their 
task to announce the coming of Jehovah. No 
element in their teaching was more common to 
all of them than this, and none more fundamen- 
tal. It binds all their utterances together into 
unity, and connects them also with the fuller 
revelation of a later day. 



55 



CHAPTER II 
AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

Some Old Testament characters have suffered 
severely at the hands of modern critics. Abra- 
ham, for instance, is declared by the more radical 
to be a myth. Moses, they say, had nothing 
whatsoever to do with the Law that bears his 
name ; indeed, his very existence has been denied. 
Samuel, they claim, was not a judge or prophet, 
but simply "the seer of a small town, . . . 
known only as a clairvoyant, whose information 
concerning lost or strayed property was reliable." 
David, they confidently assert, not only did not 
write any of the Psalms, but was a man of very 
crude, half -barbarous religious conceptions. 
Solomon, they hold, instead of being remarkable 
for his wisdom, was merely a shortsighted 
Oriental despot. And so there are many others 
who have been shorn of much, if not all, of the 
honor that once attached to their names by the 
ruthless knife of criticism. 

This, however, is not the case with the prophet 
Amos. Much of the distinction he now enjoys 
is due to the work of the critics. It is they who 
56 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

have given him his present exalted position in 
biblical history. A century ago he was simply 
one of the minor prophets. No special signifi- 
cance attached to him. He was not regarded 
as original in thought, and his style was supposed 
to be that of a rustic, lacking in refinement. But 
observe what the pillars of Old Testament 
scholarship now say of him. "The book of 
Amos," says Cheyne, "forms a literary as well 
as a prophetic phenomenon." "To the unpreju- 
diced judgment," says W. Robertson Smith, "the 
prophecy of Amos appears one of the best 
examples of pure Hebrew style. The language, 
the images, the grouping are alike admirable; 
and the simplicity of the diction ... is a token, 
not of rusticity, but of perfect mastery." "There 
is nowhere," says Harper, "to be found in the 
Old Testament an example of a stronger or purer 
literary style." "His language," says Driver, "is 
pure, his style classical and refined." And more 
striking still are the testimonies to his importance 
as a religious teacher. Wellhausen says that 
he "was the founder of the purest type of a new 
phase of prophecy." Marti declares that he is 
"one of the most prominent landmarks in the 
history of rehgion." Kuenen speaks of him and 
his immediate successors as "the creators of 
ethical monotheism," and Cornill describes him 
as "one of the most marvelous and incompre- 

57 . 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

hensible figures in the history of the human 
mind, the pioneer of a process of evolution from 
which a new epoch of humanity dates." 

In this new estimate of Amos there is a large 
element of exaggeration. He was not so original 
as these critics claim. His teaching had its roots 
in the past. It was the natural outgrowth of the 
religious thought in Israel before his time. It 
did not flash upon the world as something alto- 
gether novel and unexpected. As one reads the 
book of Amos one is reminded of Emerson's 
words to Walt Whitman. **I greet you," he said, 
"at the beginning of a great career, which yet 
must have had a long foreground somewhere for 
such a start." The type of thought which Amos 
represents cannot, as the Germans say, have been 
"shot out of a pistol." It "must have had a long 
foreground somewhere." It must have been pre- 
pared for by centuries of reflection on the deep 
things of God. The same is also to be said of 
the literary style of Amos. It points to a long 
antecedent literary activity in Israel. Amos can- 
not have created it outright. He must have had 
his literary models. He was not, then, such a 
prodigy of originality as some moderns would 
make out. 

Nevertheless, he was a great and significant 
personality. The old view did not do him jus- 
tice. It failed to recognize the fact that he was 

58 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

the first of the Hterary prophets, and as such 
represented an important step forward in the 
rehgious history of Israel. This forward step 
did not consist so much in the announcement of 
new ideas as in the clarification and spiritualiza- 
tion of religious thought in general. But it was 
not on that account any the less important. The 
great need of the people of Israel in the eighth 
century before Christ was that the heathen 
elements which had crept into their life and 
worship in the course of centuries should be 
eliminated. And this need the literary prophets 
set themselves to meet. They revived the Mosaic 
ideal ; they taught the people the essential nature 
of true worship ; they made it clear that Jehovah 
was above everything else a God of righteous- 
ness, and that as such he cared nothing for the 
special privileges of Israel or for rites and cere- 
monies. What he alone required was holy living. 
They thus moralized religion, and not only mor- 
alized it, but also universalized it ; for the God in 
whose name they spoke was not only God of 
Israel but of all the world. Their work, there- 
fore, prepared the way for Christianity and 
for the world-wide sway of a religion of right- 
eousness and love. Accordingly, it is no small 
distinction to have initiated this movement. 
Even if Amos had no other claims to our ad- 
miration, this fact alone would entitle him to be 

59 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

classed with the beacon lights of prophecy. But 
he was not simply the first of the literary 
prophets. He was in and of himself a striking 
character with a striking message, and, as such, 
is abundantly deserving of our careful study. 
Of the life of Amos we know very little, noth- 
ing, indeed, except what we find in his book. 
From the latter we learn that he lived in the 
days of Jeroboam II (B. C. 781-740.). As a 
long period of prosperity seems to lie back of 
the prophet, we conclude that his ministry fell 
in the second half of Jeroboam's reign, probably 
about B. C. 750. We are also told that his home 
was Tekoa, a town twelve miles south of Jeru- 
salem. Tekoa was situated on the top of a high 
hill twenty-seven hundred feet above the sea, and 
so offered a commanding view over the desolate 
region round about. This environment no doubt 
had its influence on the growing mind of the 
prophet. G. A. Smith thinks it clear from his 
book that Amos must have 'liaunted heights, 
and lived in the face of wide horizons." Such 
a conclusion as this might naturally be drawn 
from 4. 13; 5. 8, 9; and 9. 5, 6. But, unfortu- 
nately, these three passages are commonly 
assigned to a later hand. And it hardly relieves 
the situation to be told, as we are, by the same 
author, that, while this is true, "no one questions 
their right to the place which some great spirit 

60 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

gave them in this book — ^their suitableness to its 
grand and ordered theme, their pure vision and 
their eternal truth." The chief reason for deny- 
ing these passages to Amos is that they disturb 
the continuity of thought. But this is not true 
of 4. 13, and as for the other two passages it 
is possible that they have been displaced from 
their original connection. Then, too, it is to 
be observed that sudden and unexpected flashes 
of thought are characteristic of Amos. He likes 
to startle his hearers by some bold and surprising 
turn of expression that gives to his discourse a 
new background (3. 2; 4. 4; 9. 7). Therefore 
it is not improbable that these disputed ''nature- 
passages" belong to Amos ; and, if so, they illus- 
trate impressively the sense of natural grandeur 
nourished\in him by his mountain home. 

While Amos was a resident of Judah, his pro- 
phetic message was delivered in and to Israel. 
This fact raises an interesting question with 
reference to the relation of his message to Judah. 
Did Amos mean to except Judah from the doom 
pronounced upon Israel and the neighboring 
peoples? Or did he mean to include Judah in 
the condemnation of the northern kingdom? At 
first it might seem that this question was defi- 
nitely answered by 2. 4, 5. But this passage, as 
compared with the other oracles of doom, is so 
general and colorless that it is commonly and 

61 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

justly, at least in its present form, assigned to 
a later hand. There are, however, other indi- 
cations that Amos had no thought of sparing 
the southern kingdom. In 6. iff. the dwellers 
in Zion are condemned along with those in 
Samaria; in 3. i, 2 ''the whole family" brought 
up from Egypt is addressed; 2. 10 likewise 
applies to the entire nation, and 6. 14 probably 
defines the limits of the whole Hebrew people 
rather than those of simply the northern king- 
dom. In addition to this, there was no reason, 
as we learn from Isaiah, why Judah should not 
have come under the same condemnation as 
Israel. Moral and religious conditions were 
essentially the same in both kingdoms, and that 
a man of such stern and impartial temper as 
Amos should have exempted Judah from punish- 
ment because of narrow patriotic motives is, 
of course, incredible. We must, therefore, hold 
that Amos meant to include Judah in the com- 
mon doom that was to befall Israel and the sur- 
rounding nations. 

But if so, the question still remains as to why 
Amos chose Bethel rather than Jerusalem as the 
scene of his ministry. For this choice there must 
have been some reason. The probable answer 
is that he looked upon the two branches of the 
Israelitic people as essentially one, and that of 
the two the northern was the more important. 

62 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

The center of the national life was to be found 
there. Bethel, therefore, the royal sanctuary of 
the northern realm, was a strategic place for a 
prophet to begin his ministry. His message 
would there produce the most immediate and 
powerful effect. Furthermore, it is to be borne 
in mind that the account of the ministry of Amos 
which has come down to us is extremely frag- 
mentary. Only one incident from it is recorded, 
namely, the prophet's conflict with the priest 
Amaziah (7. 10-17). This conflict probably put 
an end to the activity of Amos in Bethel. But 
from this it by no means follows that he may 
not have worked elsewhere, in Judah as well as 
in Israel. It is indeed a priori improbable that 
such a man as he was permanently silenced. 

Amos disclaims being a prophet or the son of 
a prophet (7. 14). By this he means that he did 
not belong to the prophetic order, and so had not 
received the training of a professional prophet. 
By occupation he was a shepherd and "a dresser 
of sycamore trees" (i. i ; 7. 14). There is some 
question as to what the function of "a dresser of 
sycamore trees" was, and some question also as 
to whether this is the correct translation of the 
original. But, in any case, Amos here desig- 
nates himself as a man of lowly station. He 
belonged to the poorer classes and made his liv- 
ing by humble toil. In view of this fact one 

63 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

naturally wonders how he acquired the degree 
of culture which he manifestly possessed. The 
answer is that conditions in the East were differ- 
ent from what they are with us. "Among the 
Hebrews," as W. Robertson Smith says, "knowl- 
edge and oratory were not affairs of professional 
education, or dependent for their cultivation on 
wealth and social status. The sum of book- 
learning was small; men of all ranks mingled 
with that Oriental freedom which is foreign to 
our habits ; shrewd observation, a memory reten- 
tive of traditional lore, and the faculty of 
original observation took the place of laborious 
study as the ground of acknowledged intellectual 
preeminence." The social position of Amos, 
then, was no bar to his equipping himself with 
the culture of the day. His eyes and ears were 
both kept open. From travelers he learned of 
Assyria, of Damascus, of Egypt, and of the 
smaller nations round about Israel. Indeed, he 
may himself have visited these lands. He knew 
something of their histoi*y and of present con- 
ditions in them. His own people he watched 
closely. With their past history he was thor- 
oughly familiar. He knew that Jehovah had 
brought them up from the land of Egypt, that 
he had led them forty years in the wilderness, 
that he had delivered into their hands the land 
of the Amorite, and that he had raised up for 
64 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

them prophets and Nazirites for their instruc- 
tion (2. 9-12). He also knew that in spite of 
all this they had been a wayward people, and 
that to recall them from their evil way Jehovah 
had sent them famine and drought, blasting and 
mildew, war, pestilence, and earthquake (4. 6- 
11), but all to no avail. At present they were 
prosperous. But this fact did not deceive the 
prophet. His keen eye pierced the thin veil of 
material prosperity, and saw beneath it an 
advanced stage of decay. So corrupt was Israel 
that something serious, he felt, must occur before 
long. He watched, therefore, the course of 
affairs round about him, both at home and 
abroad, with the keenest interest, and kept his 
ear close to the ground waiting for the footfall 
of coming events. 

It is a matter of interest to know how the 
prophetic call came to him. He himself says 
that Jehovah "took" him from following the 
flock. This implies a sudden seizure by a power 
not of himself. Such is also the purport of 3. 8, 
where the prophet says : "The lion hath roared ; 
who will not fear? The Lord Jehovah hath 
spoken; who can but prophesy?" There was, 
as it were, a burning fire shut up in his bones 
which compelled him to speak. Someone has 
said that there are two classes of preachers — the 
good preachers who have something to say, and 

6s 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

the poor preachers who have to say something. 
But there is yet another and higher class. It 
consists of those who both have something to 
say and who have to say it. Such are the 
prophets. Such a one was Amos. He did not, 
simply as a result of reflection on conditions at 
home and abroad, conclude that Assyria would 
probably conquer Israel and that it was therefore 
his duty, a duty imposed by Jehovah, to declare 
this truth to the people of Israel. It is a mistake 
to suppose that the peril from Assyria was so 
manifest in the time of Amos that "what 
requires explanation is not so much that Amos 
was aware of it as that the rulers and people of 
Israel were so blind to the impending doom" 
(W. Robertson Smith). As a matter of fact, 
Amos nowhere mentions the Assyrians by name, 
unless we follow the Septuagint and read in 3. 9 
"Assyria" instead of "Ashdod." No doubt, he 
thought at times of Assyria as the instrument of 
Jehovah's wrath (5. 2y), but he does not say 
so definitely. On this point he was apparently 
uncertain (3. 9-12). And such we know was the 
case with Hosea (9. 3; 11. 5; 8. 13; 10. 6). 
Doom was to come, but whether from Egypt or 
Assyria was left undetermined. It might come 
from either land. So it was not political 
calculation that lay at the root of Amos's mes- 
sage of judgment. That he was gifted with 
66 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

political insight, superior to that of the profes- 
sional politicians of his day, is open to question. 
In any case, he nowhere bases his message upon 
considerations of this kind. That Israel was to 
go into captivity came to him rather as an intui- 
tion, and an intuition of such an unusual char- 
acter that he had no doubt of its divine source. 
In the attainment of this intuition, or premoni- 
tion, political observation no doubt played a 
part, as did also reflection on the sins of Israel. 
The latter, indeed, was more important than the 
former. But over and above all rational proc- 
esses of this kind, there was in the call of the 
prophet an element that defies analysis, a mys- 
terious something which carried with it the con- 
viction that the doom of Israel was an immediate 
revelation of God, and which filled the prophet 
with an irresistible impulse to declare it unto 
others. An adequate scientific explanation of 
the source of this message is impossible. It had 
its roots in those deeps of the human spirit where 
there is immediate communion with the Spirit of 
God. 

In order to understand the full import of this 
message of doom it is necessary to fix clearly in 
mind two important facts that are frequently 
overlooked. The first is the religious significance 
of the nation to the ancient Israelite. With us 
the individual is the unit of value in religion. 

67 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Our country, however much we may love it, is 
not necessary to our rehgious Hfe. Banishment 
from it, no matter how much we might regret it, 
would not necessarily affect our deepest religious 
interests. Our relation to God would still be the 
same, and we would still have the same hope of 
salvation and eternal life. Not so, however, the 
ancient Hebrew. With him the nation over- 
shadowed the individual. It was through the 
nation, through the sanctuaries in the land of 
Israel, that the individual entered into fellow- 
ship with Jehovah. Only in Canaan, therefore, 
could he lead a life of full communion with God. 
Every other land was to him an unclean land 
(7. 17). To live in Assyria was to be compelled 
to eat unclean food (Hos. 9. 3f.). Life in that 
land had for him no sanctity. It was cut off 
from Jehovah. National exile, therefore, to 
him was a far more serious matter than it would 
be to us to-day. It was in a sense the sum of all 
evils. It meant the blotting out of all his highest 
hopes; it meant the annihilation of all that had 
given sacredness to life. 

But even more important than this popular 
religious nationalism is the further fact that the 
idea of doom in Amos and the prophets generally 
is larger than that of any particular calamity. 
The captivity of Israel was only a part of a more 
general catastrophe. Back of all the threat en- 
68 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

ings of the prophets lay the idea of a great world- 
judgment. This idea did not originate, as is fre- 
quently asserted, with the prophet Zephaniah. It 
formed the background of all the literary 
prophets, and was current in Israel before their 
time. The people of Israel had the idea that 
there would be a great day of the Lord, in which 
Jehovah would assert his supremacy over all the 
nations of the world. In the ruin and tumult of 
this great day they themselves expected to be 
saved. It was to be unto them a day of light and 
not of darkness (5. 18). Evil would befall the 
other peoples, but it would not overtake them 
(9. 10; 6. 3; Isa. 28. 15). Such was apparently 
the common view when Amos appeared upon the 
scene. He accepted the idea of such a general 
day of doom, and began by applying it to the 
neighboring nations (i. 3 to 2. 3), but then sud- 
denly turned and declared that it would fall with 
special severity upon Israel herself (2. 6-16). 
She would be rescued, he ironically said, '"as the 
shepherd rescues out of the mouth of the lion 
two legs or a piece of an ear" (3. 12). In other 
words, she was doomed to practically complete 
destruction. 

Her doom, however, was not an isolated one. 
Nor did it consist simply in the sufferings of war 
and captivity. In intension as well as extension 
the prophetic idea of doom was more significant 

69 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

than has commonly been supposed. Destructive 
war was to come, but it was not the only form 
under which the approaching catastrophe was 
conceived, nor was it the end of the whole matter. 
Even after the Israelites have been carried into 
captivity, the sword of Jehovah, we are told, will 
pursue them and slay them (9. 4). From this it 
is evident that the question with which Amos 
was dealing was not simply one of the weal or 
woe of the nation. His problem was a higher 
one — it was one of life and death (5. 4-6, 14, 
15). These terms are not defined for us. But 
they must be regarded as eschatological, as terms 
resonant with the note of finality and eternity. 
Only as we realize this, only as we put back of 
the prophetic utterances the belief in the speedy 
and final coming of Jehovah, can we fully appre- 
ciate the significance of these utterances and the 
passion which was put into them. The prophets 
were not dealing with a merely temporary polit- 
ical question, that of the existence of Israel. 
To them the doom or redemption of Israel was 
only a part of a great and ultimate manifesta- 
tion of Jehovah, which had all the significance 
for them that individual destiny has for us. 
Hence the problem with which Amos and the 
other prophets were dealing was at bottom the 
same as that with which religion is grappling to- 
day and has been grappling through all the ages 

70 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

of human history — the problem of Hfe and death, 
the problem of salvation. 

Bearing this in mind, we turn now to the book 
of Amos. It is unusually simple and orderly in 
its arrangement. Apart from the concluding 
section (9. 8-15) it is made up of three main 
divisions. In the first two chapters we have 
eight oracles of judgment; in chapters three to 
six there are a number of sermons of judgment ; 
and in chapters seven to nine we have five visions 
of judgment. Each of the main divisions of the 
book thus has judgment as its theme. Oracles, 
sermons, and visions all center about this idea. 
And so the motto placed at the beginning (i. 2) 
is true to the character of the book as a whole 
with the exception of the concluding verses. 

Jehovah will roar from Zion, 

And utter his voice from Jerusalem; 

And the pastures of the shepherds shall mourn, 

And the top of Carmel shall wither. 

Some reject this verse as a later addition to the 
text, but the paradoxical form in which it is cast 
is so characteristic of Amos (3. 2; 4. 4; 9. 7) 
that it carries within itself the stamp of its own 
genuineness. The voice of Jehovah in the roar 
of the thunder would naturally suggest a refresh- 
ing rain, but here it is followed by a withering 

71 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

drought, which symbohzes the approaching deso 
lation of the land. 

This desolation is conceived of as due to vari- 
ous causes, but the one most frequently referred 
to is war. Some foreign foe will invade the land 
whom the Israelitic soldiery will be powerless to 
withstand. The war will therefore be extraor- 
dinarily destructive of life. The city that goes 
forth a thousand will have but a hundred left, 
and the one that goes forth a hundred will have 
only ten left (5. 3). Nine tenths of Israel's 
warriors will thus be slain. But not only will 
men fall in battle — the war will also be accom- 
panied by famine. The fair virgins and the 
young men will faint from thirst (8. 13). And 
not only will there be a famine of bread and a 
thirst for water, but also of hearing the words of 
Jehovah. Men ''shall wander from sea to sea, 
and from the north even to the east; they shall 
run to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, and 
shall not find it" (8. 11, 12). The parching of 
the soul will thus be added to the starvation of 
the body. In addition to this, there will be a 
pestilence, a scourge that frequently in the East 
follows in the wake of war. One especially 
vivid scene from this threatened plague is pre- 
served for us. The verses in which it is 
described (6. 9, 10) are somewhat obscure, but 
the meaning is probably this : There are ten men 

72 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

in a house. All have died but one, and he has 
withdrawn to the innermost part of the house, 
thinking thus to hide himself from the divine 
anger. A relative coming to bury the dead dis- 
covers that there is still one alive. Calling to 
him in his inner room, he asks if there is any one 
else alive with him. He replies *'No," and then, 
as he is about to add some formula containing 
the divine name, the relative interrupts him, say- 
ing: "Hush! It is not permitted to make men- 
tion of the name of Jehovah." So terrible, the 
prophet here means to say, will be the gloom that 
will fall upon the people, and so great their super- 
stitious fear that they will not dare even to men- 
tion the name of their God, lest it rouse him to 
new anger against them. Thus will they be 
afflicted from one end of the land to the other. 
"The dead bodies," therefore, "shall be many; in 
every place shall they cast them forth with 
silence" (8. 3). 

In the midst of such carnage, famine, and 
pestilence, the whole state is to go down into 
ruin. No part of it will escape, and no class will 
be exempt. The city of Samaria, with all that is 
therein, will be delivered up (6. 8), and the 
people will be afflicted from the entrance of 
Hamath to the brook of the Arabah (6. 14). 
The judgment will fall with special severity upon 
the luxurious nobles, but the suffering poor will 

73 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

not escape. "Woe," says the prophet, **to them 
that are at ease in Zion, and to them that are 
secure in the mountain of Samaria, the notable 
men," the rich, those who are content with pres- 
ent conditions and who therefore put off the evil 
day (6. 1-3). But woe, also, he says, to those 
who long for the day of Jehovah, the oppressed 
poor, who see in the expected miraculous inter- 
vention of Jehovah the hope of better things for 
themselves (5. 18). In this hope they will be 
disappointed. The day of Jehovah will be to 
them darkness and not light. In that day the 
winter-house and the summer-house, the houses 
of ivory and the great houses, will perish (3. 
15), and so also the little house (6. 11). And, 
finally, the sanctuaries themselves, the last refuge 
of the nation, will be destroyed ; and the broken 
capitals and beams will be used to break the 
heads of the few who seek to escape (9. i). So 
complete and so terrible will the catastrophe be 
that even nature cannot remain unmoved at the 
sight. Both earthquake and eclipse will attend 
it. The land "shall rise up wholly like the River ; 
and it shall be troubled and sink again like the 
River of Egypt." And the sun will go down at 
noon, and the earth be darkened in the clear day 
(8. 9, 10). 

Of the certainty of this impending ruin the 
prophet has no doubt. Before his vision the 

74 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

snare is already springing up to catch its victim ; 
the lion with his roar is already leaping upon his 
prey (3. 4, 5). No escape is possible. The evil 
eye of Jehovah — ^the magical evil eye of the 
East — is upon his people (9. 8). His gaze 
they cannot elude. 

Though they dig into Sheol, 
Thence shall my hand take them; 

And though they climb up to heaven, 
Thence will I bring them down. 

And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, 
I will search and take them out thence; 

And though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of 
the sea, 
Thence will I command the serpent, and it shall bite them. 

And though they go into captivity before their enemies, 
Thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay 
them (9. 2-4). 

So certain, indeed, to the prophet's mind is this 
impending destruction that he regards it as al- 
ready accomplished; and adopting the peculiar 
elegiac metre of his day, sings a funeral song 
over Israel. 

The virgin of Israel is fallen; 

She shall no more rise : 
She is cast down upon her land; 

There is none to raise her up (5. 2). 

But prominent as the idea of judgment is in 
his book, Amos was not simply a prophet of 

75 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

doom. He did not merely predict the destruc- 
tion of his own people. Had he done only this, 
we should have had no more than a psycholog- 
ical interest in him, such an interest as we have 
in other predicters of evil who have appeared 
shortly before some great catastrophe. For 
instance, four or five months before the earth- 
quake that destroyed Messina, during the hot- 
test days of the summer, there appeared in the 
streets of that city one of those wandering reli- 
gious fanatics whom the Italians call ''Nazar- 
enes." Stopping at the busiest corners and gain- 
ing the attention of passers-by by the ringing of 
a bell, he addressed them in these words : ''Be 
warned, take heed and repent, ye men of 
Messina! This year shall not end before your 
city is utterly destroyed." A few days before 
the end of the year this prediction was remark- 
ably fulfilled. The question then naturally arises 
as to whether this fulfillment was simply a coin- 
cidence or whether the "Nazarene" had a real 
presentiment of the impending disaster. But, 
however interesting this question may be from 
the psychological point of view, it has no further 
significance — regardless of the answer that may 
be given to it. And so it would be with the 
words of Amos, had he been merely a predicter 
of doom. No religious importance would attach 
to them. 

7^ 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

What makes Amos a significant figure in the 
history of rehgion is the great rehgious concep- 
tions underlying his message of doom. In order 
to understand these conceptions it will be well 
to contrast them with the popular beliefs of his 
day. The people about him felt certain of the 
divine favor for two reasons: First, they were 
the chosen of Jehovah. He had brought them 
up out of Egypt and so would certainly continue 
to care for them. Secondly, they were atten- 
tive to all the details of his worship. They vis- 
ited the sanctuaries, they kept the feasts, they of- 
fered the sacrifices with scrupulous care. What 
more, they thought, could any God require? 
Fidelity, then, to religious rites and the enjoy- 
ment of a unique relation to Jehovah were the 
two grounds on which they expected exemption 
from punishment on the approaching day of 
doom. 

To Amos, however, these two pillars of pop- 
ular confidence were broken reeds. Neither 
offered the slightest basis for any assurance of 
the divine favor. Indeed, to him they were the 
arch-heresies of his time. ''You only," he repre- 
sents Jehovah as saying, "have I known of all 
the families of the earth; therefore I will" not 
protect you, but "visit upon you all your iniqui- 
ties" (3. 2). It was true that Jehovah had 
chosen them to be his peculiar people. He stood 

77 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

in an especially close relation to them. But this 
did not mean, as they supposed, that they had a 
monopoly of the divine favor. It did not mean 
that they would certainly escape when the day 
of judgment came. It simply meant moral op- 
portunity. Jehovah had given them the opportu- 
nity to be a better people than any other. He 
had made revelations of his character to them 
such as he had made to no other nation. This 
added light, however, instead of lessening their 
responsibility, only increased it, and made it all 
the more certain that they would be called to 
a strict account for their misdoings. In Jeho- 
vah's government of the world there was absolute 
and impartial justice. No favoritism, therefore, 
would be shown Israel. **Are ye not as the 
children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children 
of Israel? saith Jehovah. Have not I brought 
up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the 
Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from 
Kir?" (9. 7.) Appeal had evidently been fre- 
quently made in the day of Amos to the de- 
liverance from Egypt as evidence that Jehovah 
had treated and would continue to treat Israel 
with special consideration. But the prophet here 
declares that this appeal was mistaken. Jeho- 
vah's protecting care was not confined to Israel. 
It was universal. It had brought the Philistines 
from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir; 

78 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

nothing, then, in Israel's outward history 
afforded her any ground for presuming upon the 
divine clemency. Whatever preeminence she 
possessed was to be found in the special revela- 
tion which Jehovah had made to her of his char- 
acter and will. This revelation, however, she 
had spurned. She, therefore, had no advantage 
over other nations. She meant no more to Je- 
hovah than the distant and despised Ethiopians. 
Such was the manner in which Amos dealt 
with the national pretension of his day. With 
the popular trust in rites and ceremonies he was 
even harsher still. ''Come," he says, "to Bethel, 
and" — not "offer sacrifices," as we would expect, 
but — "transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply trans- 
gression" (4. 4). By this paradoxical and iron- 
ical invitation Amos means to say that the sacri- 
fices which the Israelites offered at their sanctu- 
aries, instead of winning the divine favor, were 
really equivalent to transgressions, calling forth 
the divine wrath. To many in Israel, such a 
thought as this must have seemed well-nigh blas- 
phemous. Pilgrimages, sacrifices, and tithes 
were the forms in which piety for centuries had 
expressed itself. They must, then, be acceptable 
to Jehovah. There could be nothing wrong in 
them. So no doubt the popular mind reasoned. 
And it is a mistake to suppose that Amos meant 
to condemn all rites and ceremonies as such. He 

79 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

was not such a doctrinaire as to be blind to the 
fact that true piety needs its days and seasons 
and outward forms for its proper cultivation. 
What he objected to and denounced was the sub- 
stitution of these external rites for the inner 
spirit of piety. In and of themselves the rites 
were innocent enough and might be an actual aid 
to true religion, but as a substitute for righteous- 
ness they were an abomination in the sight of 
God. And so Jehovah says : 

I hate, I despise your feasts, 
And I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 

Your meal-offerings I will not accept; 
Neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat 
beasts. 

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; 
For I will not hear the melody of thy viols. 

But let justice roll down as waters, 
And righteousness as a mighty stream ^^5. 21-24). 

This is one of the great passages in the prophetic 
literature. In it we have expressed for the first 
time, so far as we know, with perfect clearness 
and finality the absolute worthlessness of all 
mere ceremonialism and the supreme value, in 
the religious life, of righteousness. Henceforth, 
in religion, the one essential thing will be the 
right attitude of mind and heart. The only wor- 
ship hereafter that will be acceptable to Jehovah 
will be worship in spirit and in truth. 

80 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

And so, as against the popular trust in sacri- 
fices, and as against the popular belief in the elec- 
tion of Israel and the common assurance that 
Jehovah would in some marvelous way intervene 
on their behalf in the day of trouble, Amos laid 
down the principle that the only hope of Israel 
was to be found in righteousness. And by right- 
eousness he meant what was right in the absolute 
sense of the terni, both objective and subjective; 
he meant that which forms the essence of all true 
morality — respect for personality in oneself and 
in others. It was because the Israelites lacked 
this, because they were sinful, that doom was 
about to come upon them. The approaching 
catastrophe was not due to political necessity nor 
to blind chance, it was a penalty inflicted upon 
them because of their sin (3. 3-6). Accordingly, 
only a removal of their sin could save them. 

Sin with them manifested itself in various 
forms, but there were two specific evils which 
Amos especially condemned. First, the rich op- 
pressed the poor. They took exactions from 
them of wheat (5. 11), they used false measures 
in buying and selling (8. 5), and fairly crushed 
their head to the earth (2. 7). Secondly, the 
judges, to whom the poor appealed for relief, 
were corrupt. They accepted bribes (5. 12), and 
so were controlled by the rich. In this way hu- 
man life was literally bartered away. The inno- 

81 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

cent were sold for silver and the needy for a pair 
of shoes (2. 6; 8. 6). It was not, however, the 
smallness of the amount for which the poor were 
sold that stirred the indignation of the prophet, 
but the fact that they were sold at all. All 
money in his estimate was base when compared 
with the value of human life. There were cer- 
tain common rights of humanity that were above 
all price, and these rights the ruling classes in 
Israel were persistently disregarding. To Amos 
this seemed the height of iniquity, and not only 
the height of iniquit}^ but the very limit of gov- 
ernmental folly. 

Do horses run upon the rock? 
Do men plow the sea with oxen? 

That ye have turned justice into gall, 
And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood? (6. 12). 

One might, he says, as well try to plow the sea 
with oxen as to try to maintain a stable national 
life in the midst of such a perversion of justice. 

Thus the very nature of human government, 
as well as the principle of divine retribution, 
made it certain that the civic injustice rampant in 
Israel would result fatally to the nation. The 
only way that it could be avoided was by a com- 
plete change of conduct, by putting humanity in 
the place of inhumanity, and justice in the place 
of injustice. So Amos exhorts them, saying: 

82 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

''Seek Jehovah, and ye shall live," and "Seek 
good, and not evil, that ye may live" (5. 6, 14). 
These two exhortations are synonymous, and 
express more clearly than any other utterances in 
the book the most significant element in the 
prophet's teaching. He identifies religion abso- 
lutely with the moral law. To seek Jehovah is 
to seek the good. There is no other way of 
entering into fellowship with him. This, as we 
have already seen, was a conception of epoch- 
making significance. When religion busies itself 
with rites and ceremonies, with signs and omens, 
it is of very slight value to the world. Indeed, 
it usually acts as a bar to progress. It is guided 
by no rational principle, and so tends to sanctify 
the inconsistent, absurd, and often harmful 
usages and beliefs of the past. But when reli- 
gion is identified with the moral nature, all this is 
changed. Religion then comes to be the chief 
conserving force in society and a most powerful 
stimulus to the development of man's highest 
faculties. Conscience, from this point of view, 
is the one way of approach to God, and those 
ethical principles which lie at the basis of every 
healthy and progressive society are the special 
objects of religious concern. It was, conse- 
quently, a matter of the utmost importance in the 
history of religion when Amos laid down the law 
that the one way to seek Jehovah is to seek the 
83 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

good and not the evil. This tmth was not orig- 
inal with Amos. To some degree it had been 
apprehended centuries before his time. But he, 
so far as we know, was the first to differentiate 
it from the popular religion, and to make it the 
one fundamental principle of all true religion. 
He thus stands out in history as the great prophet 
of moral law. 

Our study, however, of the teaching of Amos 
is not yet complete. At the close of the book 
there are four brief words of hope (9. 8, 9-10, 
11-12, 13-15). These words are commonly 
supposed to have been added by a later hand. 
They are inconsistent, it is claimed, with the pre- 
ceding message of doom. For Amos to have 
followed up his bitter denunciations of Israel 
with such promises of restoration and plenty as 
we here find would have been to break the point 
off all that he had previously said. It would have 
been to ''sink back lamely into the delusion 
against which he himself had fought." ''Shall 
the illusion triumph over its destroyer, the God 
of one's wishes over the God of historical neces- 
sity?" asks Wellhausen. No one surely could be- 
lieve this of Amos. Moreover, it is urged that 
if he had entertained any hopes of future glory 
for Israel, he would certainly have insisted upon 
moral regeneration as the necessary condition of 

84 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

its attainment in a way that is not done in 9. 
11-15. 

But against this confident rejection of the con- 
cluding section of the book of Amos there has 
in recent years been a reaction. Many distin- 
guished scholars have come out in favor of its 
authenticity. One reason for this change is the 
grov^ing conviction that we know so little about 
the composition of the prophetic books and the 
conditions of thought at the time they were 
written, that we need more convincing reasons 
than are frequently given before any particular 
passage is denied to its traditional author. Want 
of connection with what precedes or follows is no 
necessary indication that a verse or passage is a 
later addition. The prophetic oracles were fre- 
quently grouped together in a purely mechanical 
way according to the principle of catchwords. 
It is then a mistake to expect in them a sustained 
continuity of thought. Furthermore, it is quite 
possible that ideas that seem mutually inconsist- 
ent to us did not seem such to the prophets them- 
selves. Many of the ideas which at present live 
peacefully together within us are really formally 
or logically inconsistent with each other, only we 
are not aware of it. Future ages, however, will 
be. In the second place, we now have evidence 
that it was customary not only among the Israel- 
itic but also the Egyptian seers to combine to- 

85 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

gether prophecies of doom and hope. One 
seemed to imply the other, as fear and hope rise 
alternately in the human breast. What the ori- 
gin of the belief in a glorious future was we do 
not know. But we know that it was current 
in Israel before the time of Amos. It is a priori 
probable, therefore, that it, as well as the belief 
in a day of doom, had its place in his book. 

In addition to these considerations is the 
further fact that the preexilic prophets were not 
merely preachers of repentance; they had also 
the function of encouraging faith. They had 
their own disciples and fellow believers whom 
they needed to cheer. Then, too, even such an 
apparently relentless prophet of doom as Amos 
had a more tender side to his nature. When the 
nation was at first threatened with destruction he 
interceded for them not once but twice, saying, 
"O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I beseech thee: how 
shall Jacob stand? for he is small" (7. 2, 5). 
And when calamity after calamity befell them 
without accomplishing its purpose, he voiced 
with infinite tenderness the heartache of God as 
he repeated over and over again the refrain, '*Yet 
have ye not returned unto me, saith Jehovah" (4. 
6-1 1 ). There are, it is true, some passages in 
which the doom of Israel is apparently an- 
nounced as absolutely final and unavoidable (7. 
7-9; 8. 1-3; 9. 1-4). But over against these are 
86 



AMOS THE PROPHET OF MORAL LAW 

to be placed those exhortations in which the 
prophet bids his hearers seek Jehovah that they 
may Hve (5. 4-6, 14, 15). Evidently, then, in 
spite of all his dark forecasts, Amos was not al- 
together without hope that Israel might be saved, 
and certainly was not without the conviction that 
some at least would ''live." To picture him as 
a kind of ethical fatalist who only passively 
mirrored the approaching judgment, as does the 
most elaborate recent commentary on his book, 
and to say that "he was indifferent to everything 
that had to do with purpose and motive," is 
utterly to misrepresent his true character. He 
was a man of intense passion, who saw purpose 
everywhere. The teleological element, instead of 
being absent from his book, permeates the whole 
of it. That such a man as he should not have re- 
flected on what would take place after the de- 
struction of Israel, is incredible. The truth, 
rather, is that, like the other prophets, he had a 
very definite conviction with reference to the ul- 
timate triumph of the kingdom of God, and that 
it was this conviction that made him bold enough 
to announce with such fidelity his message of 
doom. The destruction of Israel was never the 
last word of any prophet. Beyond the ruin 
would rise the new building of God. Israel 
would be sifted as grain is sifted in a sieve, but 
not the least kernel would fall to the earth (9. 

87 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

9). Such was the common faith of the prophets. 
And such is the faith that is expressed in the 
closing verses of the book of Amos. There was 
to be a glorious future for the people of God; 
but Israel must first be purged ; Gethsemane and 
Calvary must precede the resurrection. 

But while Amos thus had his hopeful outlook 
into the future, this was a subordinate element 
in his teaching. His primary task was to assert 
the claims of the moral law as over against the 
unspiritual formalism and the national preten- 
sion of his time. His message was therefore 
necessarily one largely of doom. His chief sig- 
nificance, however, does not lie in this message of 
doom, but in the thoroughness with which he 
moralized the conception of religion. He recog- 
nized no sacramental mysteries as of any value 
apart from moral obedience, and he allowed no 
place for caste or exclusiveness or special privi- 
lege in religion. There were from his point of 
view no private wires and no subway connections 
in the spiritual realm. The religious life was 
something to be lived out in the open, in the sight 
and within the reach of all. He thus stood for 
the enthronement of conscience in religion. This 
was his great achievement. To seek the good is 
to seek Jehovah, and to seek Jehovah is to seek 
the good. 



88 



CHAPTER III 
HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

A CERTAIN amount of interest has always at- 
tached to Hosea because of the remarkable story 
of his marriage. But it is only comparatively 
recently that his real importance has come to be 
appreciated. He, like Amos, has been ''discov- 
ered" by the modern critic. 

The trouble with the older study of the 
prophets was that it was projected against a false 
background. It assumed that the Law had 
already been given in its totality, and that the 
function of the prophets was simply to enforce 
its teaching. No originality, therefore, was pos- 
sible to them. It was their task merely to 
impress upon the people of their own day, and 
to apply to their own times, truths handed down 
from the past. To be sure, they did this with 
great skill and power. But such an achievement 
did not entitle them to rank with the creative 
geniuses of the race. It simply made them ef- 
fective preachers or gifted poets. It did not 
single them out as pioneers in any great move- 
ment of the human spirit, as leaders of thought 

89 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

who have left their impress upon all succeeding 
generations. 

Hence, before the true significance of the 
prophets could be appreciated, it was necessary 
that the traditional view with reference to the 
origin of the Law be modified. And this, as is 
well known, has been done during the past cen- 
tury. It is now seen that the Law was a gradual 
development, and that considerable portions of 
it date from a later period than that of the first 
group of literary prophets. These men, conse- 
quently, did not have back of them the clearly de- 
fined and exalted monotheism of the Law books, 
but a far less definite body of religious beliefs 
and practices. What they did, therefore, was 
not merely to reproduce the teaching of the past ; 
their work marked an important step forward. 
They took the earlier ideas, crystallized them into 
fixed principles, reduced them to a consistent 
system of belief, and thus made them the basis 
of the mightiest spiritual movement of the cen- 
turies. 

Only as we realize this fact can we properly 
appreciate the true importance of the prophets, 
especially the earliest of them, Amos and Hosea. 
The messages delivered by these men were 
relatively brief, and had they come after the 
completion of the Law would not have been espe- 
cially significant. What gives to them their 

90 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

extraordinary importance is their originality. 
The book of Amos, as we have seen, was the 
earhest in which religion is identified absolutely 
with the moral law. Amos, therefore, may be 
regarded as standing at the head of all those who 
through the ages have sought to free religion 
from its unnatural alliance with superstition, 
ceremonialism, selfishness, and tyranny, and who 
have endeavored to identify it with the never- 
ceasing struggle of the human mind for right- 
eousness, truth, freedom, and social progress. 
And so likewise with Hosea. His was the ear- 
liest book in which religion is interpreted 
absolutely in the terms of love. He, therefore, 
in a certain sense stands at the head of all those 
to whom religion has been the great solace of 
life, to whom it has meant redemption from sin 
and triumph over the world. "There is no 
truth," says George Adam Smith, "uttered by 
later prophets about the divine grace, which we 
do not find in germ in him. . . . He is the first 
prophet of grace, Israel's first evangelist." And 
Cornill goes still farther, saying, "When we con- 
sider that all this was absolutely new, that those 
thoughts in which humanity has been educated 
and which have consoled it for nearly three thou- 
sand years, were first spoken by Hosea, we must 
reckon him among the greatest religious geniuses 
which the world has ever produced." In this 

91 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

latter statement, as in the same author's estimate 
of Amos, there is a considerable element of ex- 
aggeration. Hosea's doctrine of the divine love 
was not ^'absolutely new." But it was, neverthe- 
less, expressed with a clearness and finality 
unknown before his time. And this fact entitles 
him to much of the praise here given him. He 
was undoubtedly one of the greatest of the 
prophets. Along with Amos and Isaiah he laid 
the foundations of literary prophecy, and so 
must be regarded as one of the most important 
agents through whom God made his special rev- 
elation of himself to Israel. 

The life of Hosea, like that of Amos, is for 
the most part wrapped in obscurity. Our only 
source of information concerning it is his book; 
and from it there is very little that can be ex- 
tracted with certainty. The superscription puts 
Hosea's ministi-y in the reign of Jeroboam II, 
king of Israel, and in the reigns of Uzziah, 
Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 
The names of these Judaean kings were probably 
added by some later scribe; but the addition is 
trustworthy in so far as it implies that Hosea's 
ministry continued beyond the reign of Jero- 
boam. Jeroboam died about B. C. 740, after a 
long and prosperous reign. He was succeeded 
by his son Zechariah, who after a brief reign of 
six months was assassinated by Shallum. Shal- 

92 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

lum ascended the throne, and after ruling for a 
month was himself put to death by Menahem. 
Menahem ruled for two or three years and was 
then followed by his son, Pekahiah, who after a 
reign of two years was assassinated by Pekah. 
Pekah ruled for a year or two, and then was 
slain by Hoshea, who ascended the throne as an 
Assyrian vassal and was the last of the kings of 
Israel. There were thus within eight or nine 
years, from B. C. 740 to about 732, no less than 
seven different kings of Israel, and of these four 
were assassinated by their successors. 

The period then following the death of Jero- 
boam II was one of anarchy. The kingdom was 
on the road to ruin. This state of affairs is 
clearly reflected in the last eleven chapters of the 
book of Hosea. Here we read again and again 
of the setting up of kings and of their overthrow 
(7. 3-7; 8. 4; 10. 7, 15; 13. lof.). But how 
far into this period of confusion and anarchy 
Hosea's ministry extended we do not know. 
The fact that his book contains no reference to 
the Syro-Ephraimitic war (B. C. 734-733) and 
no allusion to the immediately following invasion 
of Gilead and Galilee by the Assyrians, suggests 
that his work was by that time done. We may, 
therefore, since chapters one to three manifestly 
preceded the death of Jeroboam (i. 4), put 
Hosea's date at about B. C. 743 to 733. He was 

93 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

thus a younger contemporary of Amos. Whether 
he ever saw or heard the Judean prophet we 
do not know. There are two verses in his book 
(4. 15; 8. 14) that seem to imply an acquaint- 
ance with the prophecy of Amos, but their 
authenticity is open to question. 

Hosea's home was in the northern kingdom. 
This is clear from the fact that he speaks of the 
king of Israel as ''our king" (7. 5), and from the 
further fact that all the places he mentions by 
name are found in the northern realm, as for 
example Gilead, Gibeah, Gilgal, Jezreel, Ramah, 
Shechem, Bethel, and Samaria. Another rea- 
son often adduced in support of this view is that 
Hosea is more sympathetic in his attitude toward 
Israel than Amos. 'Tn every sentence," says 
Ewald, *'it appears that Hosea had not only vis- 
ited the kingdom of Ephraim, as Amos had 
done, but that he is acquainted with it from the 
depths of his heart, and follows all its doings, 
aims, and fortunes with the profound feelings 
gendered of such sympathy as is conceivable in 
the case of a native prophet only." And says 
Elmslie : ''The words of Amos sound like a voice 
from outside, pealing with the thunder of God's 
anger and righteous indignation against wrongs 
and injuries that Amos does not feel himself 
bound up with. The characteristic of Hosea's 
book is that the burden of Israel's guilt lies 

94 



ROSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

weighty on his soul; he wails, and mourns, and 
laments, and repents with that sinful people." 

But this admitted difference between the two 
prophets need not necessarily be due to the fact 
that one was a native of Israel and the other not. 
It may be due quite as much to their difference 
of temperament. Amos was a stern man, a 
man of clear thought and firm will, who stood to 
some degree apart from the common life of men. 
Hosea, on the other hand, was a man of deeply 
emotional nature, rich in his affections, a man 
who by instinct entered sympathetically into the 
lives of others. Had he, like Amos, been a na- 
tive of Judah, his message would in all probabil- 
ity have been the same in spirit that it now is. 
For no such gulf separated the two kingdoms as 
is sometimes supposed. Conditions in Judah 
were not essentially different from those in Is- 
rael. The things that united the two realms were 
far deeper and more significant than those that 
divided them. There is no indication that Amos 
felt any special strangeness when at Bethel, or 
that he looked upon the northern kingdom with 
any particular coldness. The two peoples were 
for him practically one (3. i). The same is also 
true of Hosea, who refers not infrequently to 
Judah (5. 5, 10; 6. 4; 10. 11). The more sym- 
pathetic tone of his prophecies, therefore, can 
hardly be ascribed to his place of residence. It 

95 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

is due, rather, to his temperament. But the 
other grounds above mentioned for believing that 
his home was in Israel are decisive. And it is 
a matter of interest to know that he is the only- 
canonical prophet of whom this is true. Shortly 
after his time Samaria fell (B. C. 721). He 
consequently had no successors in Israel such as 
Amos had in Judah. 

Concerning the details of Hosea's life, we 
have very little, if any, information. The ques- 
tion has been raised as to whether his home was 
in the country or the city, and it has been argued 
that the numerous illustrations which he draws 
from nature, from the wild beasts, and from ag- 
ricultural life favor the fonner. It has also been 
asserted that he surely lived near a public bakery, 
''for he delights to draw illustrations from the 
fiery oven." But these are idle fancies, as worth- 
less as they are baseless. With greater probabil- 
ity it has been conjectured that he was a priest. 
He has, for instance,' an unusually high concep- 
tion of the duty of the priesthood in the matter 
of popular education. He looks upon the priests 
as in a large measure responsible for the morals 
of the people. It is "like people, like priest" 
(4. 9). ''My people," says Jehovah, "are de- 
stroyed for lack of knowledge"; and then, turn- 
ing to the priestly class, he adds, "Because thou 
hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, 
96 



' HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

that thou shalt be no priest to me" (4. 6). The 
priests instead of properly instructing the people 
were leading them astray. "They feed on the 
sin of my people, and set their heart on their 
iniquity" (4. 8). But not only does Hosea show 
unusual insight into the responsibility of the 
priesthood; he also reveals a rich knowledge of 
the past history of his people, such as one would 
naturally expect of a priest (9. 10; 10. 9; 11. i; 
12. 3; 13. i). Then, too, he is acquainted with a 
written Law, in which it was apparently the spe- 
cial function of the priest to give instruction 
(4. 6; 8. I, 12). Still further, it may be noted 
that he speaks of "the people that doth not un- 
derstand" (4. 14) in a way that implies that he 
belonged to those who knew the requirements of 
the Law. It is therefore not improbable that he 
belonged to the priesthood, and was forced into 
the prophetic office by the degeneracy of his 
order. But of his ministry itself we know noth- 
ing, except that he seems to have suffered perse- 
cution (9. 7, 8). 

The point of special interest in connection with 
the life of Hosea is the story of his marriage 
(chapters i and 3). So strange is this story that 
it is still an open question whether it should be 
interpreted literally or allegorically. In favor of 
the former, it is urged that if Hosea actually 
married a faithless wife and then later, after she 

97 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

had been put away because of her infidelity, re- 
stored her to his home, we have in this experi- 
ence the key to his message of the divine love. 
"Whence," it is asked, "his conception of the 
intense and passionate love of Jehovah for his 
faithless spouse," if it did not come from some 
such experience as this? But such reasoning is 
precarious. We need to be on our guard against 
it. It often misleads people. A good modern 
illustration is furnished in the case of Ibsen. 
Shortly after his marriage he wrote a drama 
entitled Love's Comedy, in which he took a 
rather pessimistic view of wedded life. The 
work at once called forth a storm of protest, 
and it was freely asserted that the views there 
expressed were the outcome of the poet's own 
domestic infelicity. As a matter of fact, how- 
ever, this conclusion was wholly erroneous. 
Ibsen's home life was far from unhappy. Ed- 
mund Gosse says that Mrs. Ibsen must be re- 
garded as one of the few successful wives of 
geniuses. And Ibsen himself said, in reply to 
the criticisms passed on the above work, that 
the only person who really understood the book 
was his wife. The fact is that men of genius 
do not need, as we of sluggish fancies do, the 
stimulus of immediate personal experience to 
direct and inspire their thought. Endowed with 
the divine gift of imagination, they can project 
98 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

themselves into the lives of others and think 
their thoughts without necessarily sharing in 
their experiences. Reasoning thus, there is 
nothing in Hosea's conception of the divine love 
for Israel that requires that he should have 
passed through such a tragic experience as is 
recorded in his book. The idea may well have 
come to him independently of any such expe- 
rience. 

This, however, does not settle the question at 
issue. The story of Hosea's marriage may still 
be literal history. In favor of this view it is 
further argued* that there are certain features of 
the narrative that do not admit of an allegorical 
interpretation. This is true of the name "Gomer 
the daughter of Diblaim" (i. 3), and also of the 
weaning of Lo-ruhamah (i. 8). Another point 
made is that the analogy furnished by Isaiah, 
who gave symbolical names to his two sons 
(7- 3^ S- 3) J tends to confirm the actuality of 
what is here recorded of Hosea. But over 
against these considerations, it is contended that 
all the details of an allegory need not have sym- 
bolical significance. Some may be inserted sim- 
ply to fill out the story. And, furthermore, such 
a name as that of Gomer, the daughter of Dib- 
laim, may have been well known in Hosea's day. 
It may, as Gressmann suggests, have been the 
name of some semi-legendary character like 
99 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Semiramis, or perhaps that of some notorious 
harlot of the time; in which case the symboHcal 
character of the narrative would have been clear 
at once to the reader. It is further urged that 
the command to take ''a wife of whoredom and 
children of whoredom" (i. 2) cannot have been 
literally given to the prophet, and that the re- 
newed command in chapter 3 to love an adul- 
teress fits in poorly with chapter i. This, it is 
added, would not be the case if the narrative 
were allegorical, for chapter 3 might then be 
regarded as an independent allegory without any 
connection with chapter i. Much can thus be 
said in favor of a purely symbolical interpreta- 
tion of these chapters. (Compare Jer. 13, i-ii; 
25, I5ff. ). But decisive objective evidence 
either way cannot be found. And so interpre- 
ters usually fall back upon their own taste. 
G. A. Smith, for instance, says that ''only the 
real pain of that experience could have made the 
man brave enough to use it as a figure of his 
God's treatment of Israel." Others, on the con- 
trary, like Kuenen, find the literal interpretation 
"unnatural and offensive." 

The one distinct advantage of regarding the 
story of Hosea's marriage as autobiographical 
is that it gives to his message a pathos and a 
realism that it would not otherwise have. It 
puts back of his words a bleeding heart, and this 
100 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

gives to them a new power. If, however, we 
accept this view, which is the one commonly held 
at present, we must interpret the words "wife 
of whoredom and children of whoredom" (i. 2) 
as proleptic. It is inconceivable that Hosea 
should have deliberately married an impure 
woman, and still more so that he should have 
done it under divine command. He must have 
regarded Gomer as pure when he married her. 
Only later did he learn of her faithlessness. The 
shock of this discovery probably led him to ban- 
ish her from his home. In any case chapter 3 
finds her in bondage to another man, from whom 
Hosea redeems her. This tragic experience, if 
real, must have caused the prophet untold suffer- 
ing. Still, it was not an unmixed evil. It 
brought him a great spiritual blessing. Through 
it he came to know the heart of God as he had 
not known it before, and thus was admitted to 
a new intimacy and richness of fellowship with 
the Divine. As he, therefore, from the stand- 
point of this later experience, looked back upon 
his sufferings, it seemed clear to him that the 
hand of God had been in them all, and that even 
his marriage with this impure woman had been 
commanded of God. He did not, of course, 
himself realize this at the outset. "On that un- 
certain voyage he had sailed with sealed orders." 
Indeed, he did not even know that he was obey- 

lOI 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

ing orders. But as he looks back upon his hfe 
from a later date, it is all clear to him. All 
things, he now sees, have been working together 
for his good, and in them all he has been fol- 
lowing the leading of Jehovah. Thus he found 
for himself the greatest comfort that can come 
to any man in the face of sorrow and disappoint- 
ment. Had he been an unbeliever, he would 
have seen in his unfortunate marriage simply a 
case of bad luck without any redeeming feature 
whatsoever. But being a man of faith, he saw 
in it the gift of God and the call of God. 

By this, however, I do not mean that it was 
Hosea's unfortunate marriage that led him to be- 
come a prophet. Not a few scholars take this 
view. Dr. Batten, for instance, says, "Amos 
was led to prophesy by reason of divinely given 
insight ; Hosea was directed to the same task by 
domestic affliction of the sorest kind which can 
come to an upright soul." But this view has no 
basis in the text (compare i. 2), and is, more- 
over, out of harmony with the common interpre- 
tation of Hosea's experiences. When his first 
child was born he was not aware of his wife*s 
infidelity. Yet the name Jezreel, given this child, 
was a prophecy, announcing the fall of the 
northern kingdom. It is also by no means cer- 
tain that the prophet had come to know his 
wife's true character at the time of the birth of 
102 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

the next two children, whose names also were 
prophetic of Israel's doom. Indeed, the con- 
trary is far more probable. For he could hardly 
have retained his wife in his home after he had 
learned of her unfaithfulness. W. Robertson 
Smith, it is true, says that Hosea knew that the 
children were not his own, but "concealed the 
shame of their mother and acknowledged the 
children as his own, hiding the bitter sorrow in 
his own heart." To this, however, A. B. David- 
son has made thje following effective reply : "If 
he concealed the shame at the time, he certainly 
took effectual pains to proclaim it to all the 
world soon afterward." It is then clear that 
Hosea's call to the prophetic office preceded his 
tragic domestic experience. What the latter did 
was simply to give a new content and a new 
urgency to the call. It led him to understand 
more fully than before the passionate love of 
Jehovah, and moved him to devote himself with 
new energy to his prophetic task. Harriet 
Beecher Stowe, in speaking of the sorrow that 
came to her in the death of one of her children, 
once said, "I felt that I could never be consoled 
for it, unless this crushing of my own heart 
might enable me to work out some great good 
to others." And so it seems to have been with 
Hosea. His grief and shame impelled him to 
seek consolation in the more effective service 
103 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

which he was now qualified to render to his own 
people. 

The book of Hosea, as we have already ob- 
served, consists of two parts — chapters i to 3 
and 4 to 14. The first may be regarded as in 
the nature of an introduction to the second. In 
it the prophet states his standpoint, gives us the 
key to his message as a whole. The key is this : 
Jehovah's relation to Israel is that of a husband. 
Israel, however, has gone astray, has proven her- 
self a faithless wife. Jehovah, therefore, as a 
righteous husband, feels compelled to put her 
away. But so deep and genuine is his affection 
that he cannot allow her to be permanently alien- 
ated from him. So he redeems her from her 
bondage, and awaits *the time when she will be 
worthy of full restoration to his favor. In this 
general conception of Jehovah's relation to 
Israel we have the essence of the prophet's mes- 
sage. His whole interpretation of Israel's 
history centers about the idea of the divine love. 
In expressing this idea he might have used 
another figure. He might have represented Je- 
hovah as the father rather than the husband of 
Israel. Indeed, he does so later (11. i). And 
this is the figure which will naturally be used 
as soon as individualism has displaced national- 
ism. But so long as the nation rather than the 
104 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

individual is the center of interest the figure of 
Jehovah as a husband is the more natural one. 
The important thing, however, is the idea, not 
the figure. And the idea of the divine love is in 
these opening chapters of the book not only- 
suggested, it is made the basal element in the 
prophet's message, the Alpha and Omega of his 
theology. 

In expounding the conception of the divine 
love, Hosea relates the story of his marriage 
which we have just considered at some length. 
One difficulty with the literal interpretation of 
this story is the fragmentary form in which it 
appears. Not only is it broken up into two de- 
tached parts (chapters i and 3), but the connec- 
tion between the parts is missing. How the wife 
came into the position in which we find her in 
chapter 3 is not stated. Hence it is supposed by 
some scholars that the account of how she was 
expelled from her home has fallen out of the 
text. This account was originally the connect- 
ing link between i. 1-9 and chapter 3. The 
application, then, of the prophet's private expe- 
riences to Israel, which we now find in i. 10 to 2. 
23, belonged originally after chapter 3. This 
is at least its logical position, for the contents 
of chapter 3 are presupposed in chapter 2. 
G. A. Smith, however, thinks the present ar- 
rangement significant. It "means," he says, 
105 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

"that while the prophet's private pain preceded 
his sympathy with God's pain, it was not he who 
set God but God who set him the example of 
forgiveness." But, ingenious and beautiful as 
is this suggestion, it is hardly an adequate expla- 
nation of the present arrangement of the text. 
Indeed, the difficulties connected with the story 
as it now stands are so numerous and serious that 
some recent critics have either eliminated it 
altogether or have so curtailed and modified it 
as to deprive it of any special signification. It is 
not then surprising that the allegorical interpre- 
tation is again beginning to commend itself to 
scholars. 

The second and main part of the book, chap- 
ters 4 to 14, is made up of a number of inde- 
pendent discourses, but there is no sharp line 
of demarcation between them. One runs into 
the other in such a way that every analysis of 
the text is necessarily more or less arbitrary. 
It is, however, noticeable that from 4. i to 7. 7 
the prophet deals chiefly with the moral and 
religious corruption of Israel, while from 7. 8 
to 9. 9 he devotes attention more especially to 
her political weakness. Then in 9. 10 to 13. 16, 
while the lines of thought in the two preceding 
sections are continued, we have a number of 
references to the past history of Israel that give 
to this part of the book a more or less distinctive 
106 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

character. And, finally, in chapter 14 we have a 
closing word of hope. 

In reading these chapters we are first im- 
pressed with the prominence of the prophet's 
message of doom. To some degree we had been 
prepared for this by chapter i. But chapters 2 
and 3 had hardly led us to believe that it would 
be so conspicuous as it is. Chapters 4 to 13 are 
almost one continuous denunciation of Israel for 
her sins. Her impending destruction is an- 
nounced again and again. Amos does not deal 
more unsparingly with Israel's sins than does 
Hosea, nor does he announce her approaching 
doom more confidently and more unrelentingly. 
If anything, Hosea is the more bitter, the fiercer 
of the two. He represents Jehovah as saying 
that he "hated" the people of Israel. "Because 
of the wickedness of their doings I will drive 
them out of my house ; I will love them no more'* 
(9. 15). "I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and 
as a young lion to the house of Judah : I, even I, 
will tear and go away ; I will carry off, and there 
shall be none to deliver" (5. 14). "Shall I ran- 
som them from the power of Sheol? Shall I 
redeem them from death? O death, where are 
thy plagues? O Sheol, where is thy destruc- 
tion? Repentance shall be hid from my eyes" 

(13- 14). 
The doom thus threatened is variously con- 
107 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

ceived by Hosea. In some passages it is repre- 
sented as the outcome of internal decay. "I am,'* 
says Jehovah, "unto Ephraim as a moth, and 
to the house of Judah as rottenness" (5. 12; 
compare 7. 9; 9. 16). In others it is thought 
of as brought on by war (5. 8f. ; 7. 16; 11. 6). 
The people are to go into captivity, but whether 
to Egypt or Assyria the prophet apparently did 
not know. He mentions both lands as places to 
which they are to be deported (8. 13; 9. 3, 6; 
II. 5), and also says that they are to be ''wan- 
derers among the nations" (9. 17). This idea 
of banishment from their native land is promi- 
nent in the book, and is the prevailing form un- 
der which the impending doom is conceived. 
But the doom itself was larger than any particu- 
lar calamity. It was a kind of world- judgment 
(4. 3). This eschatological conception lay back 
of Hosea's as well as Amos's teaching. Only 
as we bear this in mind can we fully appreciate 
their message of doom. The destruction of Is- 
rael, from their point of view, was not merely a 
matter of political or national importance. It 
was an event charged with the profoundest re- 
ligious significance. The whole question of final 
doom and salvation was involved in it. It meant 
as much to the ancient Israelite as individual des- 
tiny means to us to-day. 

Another point to be borne in mind in estimat- 
108 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

ing the prophetic message of doom is this : the 
sense of danger is intimately and profoundly 
related to the awakening of the religious con- 
sciousness. The particular form under which 
the chief danger of life presents itself to the 
human mind naturally varies from age to age. 
But the feeling that there is in life something 
supremely important at stake underlies all pro- 
found and intense religious conviction. And the 
more vividly the real danger of life is conceived, 
and the more imminent it is thought to be, the 
more immediate and the more genuine will be 
the religious response. A religion which makes 
no appeal to the sense of danger has no edge to 
it. It has no power to grip the basal impulses 
of life. It is simply a meaningless sentiment, a 
worthless survival of some vital religious move- 
ment of the past. In then laying such tremen- 
dous stress on the impending doom of Israel, 
Hosea and the other prophets of his day were 
not simply adapting themselves to the actual his- 
torical conditions of their own time; they were 
appealing to a permanent element in human na- 
ture, an element that underlies the vital and 
vigorous religious life of every age. 

The grounds on which Hosea bases his mes- 
sage of doom differ somewhat from those found 
in the book of Amos. Amos lays special stress 
on the social injustice of his day, devoting but 
109 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

little attention to the corrupt worship and other 
evils. Hosea, on the other hand, makes the re- 
ligious corruption of his time, including the idol- 
atry, particularly prominent, laying less stress on 
the distinctively ethical side of the people's life. 
Then, in addition, he denounces, as Amos does 
not, the foreign alliances and the monarchy it- 
self. His teaching at this point is therefore more 
complex than that of Amos. In order to under- 
stand it better it will be well to consider its 
different elements separately. 

Hosea refers occasionally to the oppression of 
the poor. He denounces those that ''remove the 
landmark" (5. 10), and those also who oppress 
by means of "balances of deceit" (12. 7). Of 
Ephraim, who boasts that he has become rich, 
he says, "All his gains will not suffice for the 
iniquity which he has committed" (12. 8; 
emended reading). But this special evil is not 
prominent in his prophecies. What we find in 
them is a general relaxing of the moral bonds. 
Robbery and murder seem to have been common 
(4. 2; 6. 9; 7. i). Fornication was also rife. 
The prophet refers to it again and again, and 
makes some significant observations concerning 
it (4. 2, 10, 11-14; 6. 10; 7. 4; 9. 10). "I am 
unaware," says G. A. Smith, "of any earlier 
moralist in any literature who traced the effects 
of national licentiousness in a diminishing popu- 

IIO 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

lation, or who exposed the persistent delusion of 
libertine men that they themselves may resort 
to vice and yet keep their womankind chaste. 
Hosea, so far as we know, was the first to do 
this." (See Hos. 9. 11, 16; 4. 14). There was 
then a general corruption of society. All classes 
were involved in it. The priests and nobles, it 
is true, are singled out for special castigation, 
but they are condemned not so much because 
they have wronged the poor as because they have 
led the people astray. The whole nation was 
guilty. 'There is," says the prophet, ''no truth, 
nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land. 
There is nought but swearing and breaking of 
faith, and killing, and stealing, and committing 
adultery" (4. i, 2). 

The evil, however, which Hosea condemns 
most persistently and most severely is the cor- 
rupt worship. This lay at the root of much of 
the moral corruption. The current licentious- 
ness, for instance, was in large part to be traced 
to the sanctuaries. The altars on the high hills 
were breeding places of iniquity (4. 13). At 
them prostitution was regularly practiced. No 
wonder that Hosea so severely denounced the 
cult of his day! But it was not only because 
of its immoral accompaniments that Hosea con- 
demned it. It was in and of itself a wrong way 
of seeking God. "I desire," says Jehovah. 
Ill 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

"goodness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge 
of God, not burnt offerings" (6. 6). "They 
shall go with their flocks and with their herds to 
seek Jehovah; but they shall not find him; he 
hath withdrawn himself from them" (5. 6; com- 
pare 8. I if.). The one way to find God is 
through the right attitude of mind, through 
faithfulness and goodness. This was also, as 
we have seen, the teaching of Amos. Both 
prophets looked upon the current ceremonialism 
as religiously worthless, and even harmful. 

But Hosea went beyond Amos and declared 
that the Israelitic worship of his day was nothing 
short of a worship of Baal. The people them- 
selves, to be sure, thought they were worship- 
ing Jehovah (5. 6; 8. 13; 9. 4), but they did not 
"know" him (5. 4). Both in spirit and content 
their worship was largely an importation from 
the Canaanites. This was true of the immoral- 
ity associated with it. So prominent a feature 
of the Canaanitic religion was prostitution, that 
the prophets came to speak of all idolatry as a 
going "whoring" after other gods. It was also 
true of the use of images. They had no place 
in the original Mosaic institution. But grad- 
ually through Canaanitic influence they were in- 
troduced into Israel. On the part of the more 
spiritual element in the nation there was always 
a feeling of aversion toward them, but this feel- 
112 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

ing did not apparently come to a head until the 
time of Hosea. He, so far as we know, was 
the first publicly to attack and ridicule their use. 
The golden idol set up by Jeroboam I he calls 
''calves" (lo. 5; 8. 5, 6). And with utmost 
scorn he refers to men, that sacrifice, kissing 
calves (13. 2). All images, he says, are man- 
made (8. 4; 14. 3). They are, therefore, ut- 
terly unworthy to represent Jehovah. Indeed, 
they did not represent him. They were simply 
Baals, false gods (11. 2). This aspect of 
Hosea's teaching, which was continued by 
Isaiah and reached its height in Deutero-Isaiah, 
formed a very important factor in the develop- 
ment of Old Testament religion. 

But not only were there certain features or 
accompaniments of the current cult which had 
been introduced from without; the whole spirit 
of Israelitic worship had become heathenish. 
The people had forgotten the true ethical 
character of Jehovah. They would howl to him 
on their beds, but with their hearts they did not 
cry unto him (7. 14). They would gather them- 
selves for grain and new wine, but in their spirit 
would rebel against him. Hosea, therefore, sees 
in the cult of his day simply a worship of Baal. 
Israel has played the harlot. She has said, "I 
will go after my lovers, that give me my bread 
and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil 
113 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

and my drink" (2. 5). Of her vines and her 
fig trees also she has said, "These are my hire 
that my lovers have given me" (2. 12). The 
soil, the fruitful soil, as Wellhausen says, was 
the object of her religion; it took the place alike 
of heaven and hell. No wonder, then, that Je- 
hovah declares to her that he will deprive her of 
all the fruits of the soil, and will hedge up her 
way until eventually she is forced to say, "I will 
go and return to my first husband; for then was 
it better with me than now" (2. 7.). This 
language at first sounds strange to us (compare 
2. 2-13). But the underlying thought is per- 
fectly familiar. What we have here is simply 
the age-old conflict between the sensuous and the 
spiritual. The current Baalish cult was a pure 
nature-religion. It was sensuous and sensual. 
The religion of Jehovah, on the other hand, was 
sternly ethical. And in the long run, says the 
prophet, this higher form of religion is certain 
to prevail. The hard experiences of life, its 
losses and disappointments, the ultimately un- 
satisfying character of the sense-life, the grim 
fact of death — all of these are on its side. They 
are continually summoning us to the higher life 
of the Spirit. In view of these things, it would 
seem that eventually Israel and all men would 
surely turned from Baal to Jehovah, from a god 
of the flesh to the God of character. 
114 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

From what has been said concerning the Is- 
raehtic cult of his time, it is evident why Hosea 
so completely repudiated it. But it is not quite 
so clear why he denounced all foreign alli- 
ances. With us such alliances would be simply 
matters of political prudence. This, however, 
was not the standpoint from which Hosea 
viewed them. He regarded, it is true, the policy 
of Israel's leaders as foolish. "Ephraim,'' he 
says, "is like a silly dove, without understand- 
ing: they call unto Egypt, they go to Assyria" 
(7. ii). In spite of the gifts which they bear 
with them, they will by their diplomatic efforts 
secure no real aid (10. 6; 12. i). The great 
Assyrian king, he says, ''is not able to heal you : 
neither will he cure you of your wound" 
(5. 13). Instead of this, they will themselves 
be carried into captivity by the very powers 
whose help they seek (8. 13; 9. 3; 11. 5). Nev- 
ertheless, it was not because these alliances were 
unwise from the political point of view that 
Hosea condemned them. The reason for his 
opposition to them was deeper than this. He 
saw in them an evidence of disloyalty to Jeho- 
vah (7. 15). But exactly in what this disloy- 
alty consisted is not perfectly clear. Some find 
it in the fact that in ancient times every treaty 
with another nation involved to a certain extent 
a recognition of the god or gods of that nation. 
115 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Hence such a treaty on Israel's part was incon- 
sistent with the sole Godhead of Jehovah and 
implied a measure of distrust in him. Others 
explain it on the ground that the alliance of a 
small kingdom like Israel with a great empire 
like Assyria or Egypt would necessarily mean 
the introduction into Israel of Assyrian or 
Egyptian customs, rites, and beliefs that were 
out of harmony with the law of Jehovah. But 
neither of these explanations is adequate, as 
may be seen from the fact that when Israel or 
Judah had once entered into an alliance with 
another nation, the prophets advocated fidelity 
to it. Some other factor must have entered into 
their attitude toward foreign alliances. And this 
is to be found in their conception of Israel's 
unique mission in the world. This mission was 
religious, not political. Hosea's "ideal," as 
Davidson says, 'Svas already that of the Church 
of God." Political intriguing was therefore 
out of harmony with Israel's true mission. It 
tended to secularize the people, to make of them 
a nation like the other nations of the world, and 
so was equivalent to hiring lovers and speaking 
lies against Jehovah (8. 9; 7. 13). 

It is from this point of view, also, that we are 
to understand Hosea's antipathy to the mon- 
archy. The kings of his day were weak. They 
had no power to hold firmly and securely the 
116 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

reins of government. They were tossed hither 
and thither Hke chips upon the water (lo. 7). 
''Where now is thy king," asks the prophet, 
"that he may save thee?" (13. 10.) And the 
people in their helplessness cry out, 'The king, 
what can he do for us?" (10. 3). But weak and 
worthless as these kings were, it was not merely 
on this account that Hosea condemned them. 
His antipathy had a deeper basis. They and 
their predecessors had represented a policy hos- 
tile to that of the prophets. They had encour- 
aged idolatry (i Kings 12. 28). They had 
been the leaders in foreign alliances (2 Kings 
15. 19). They had many of them ascended the 
throne through violence and murder. By their 
example and influence they had thus done all in 
their power to thwart the very purpose of Je- 
hovah in the choice of Israel. No wonder that 
the prophet felt himself arrayed in spirit against 
them, no wonder that he classes them along with 
the idols as false rivals of Jehovah, and no 
wonder that Jehovah himself says, "They have 
set up kings but not by me; they have made 
princes, and I knew it not" (8. 3). 'T give thee 
a king in mine anger and take him away in my 
wrath" (13. 11). Kings and people alike had 
sown to the wind and so were now about to reap 
the whirlwind (8. 7). 

In this indictment of Israel it is to be ob- 
117 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

served that Hosea does not treat the different 
evils here spoken of as though they were inde- 
pendent of each other. They are all of one 
piece, all exhibitions of one cardinal sin, and 
that sin is apostasy from Jehovah. The im- 
morality, the idolatry, the foreign alliances, the 
man-made kings — all these were instances of 
disloyalty on Israel's part to the God of her 
fathers. At the outset she had been true to him 
(2. I4f. ; 9. 10). She had responded with ardor 
to his affection. But soon thereafter she turned 
away from him. Like Adam she transgressed 
the covenant (6. 7). And since then her his- 
tory has been one long illustration of infidelity 
to him. She has dealt treacherously and re- 
belled against him (5. 7; 13. 16). What she 
needs, therefore, above everything else is to re- 
turn to him. She needs to learn righteousness 
and kindness and the knowledge of God (4. i ; 
6. 6; 10. 12; 12. 6). This is her supreme 
duty, and this also is the panacea for all her ills. 
But so addicted have her children become to 
evil, that "their doings will not suffer them to 
turn unto their God" (5. 4). In some moment 
of affliction they may, to be sure, say to one 
another, "Come, and let us return unto Jeho- 
vah; for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he 
hath smitten and he will bind us up" (6. i). 
But this is not seriously meant. It is merely a 
118 



ROSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

passing mood. And so Jehovah says unto them : 
"O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Ju- 
dah, what shall I do unto thee? for your good- 
ness is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that 
goeth early away" (6. 4). What they need is 
a radical change of character. They must break 
up their fallow ground (10. 12). A new birth, 
indeed, is needed, but the moral energy neces- 
sary to bring this about is lacking (13. 13). 
And so ''the years that might have been the na- 
tion's birth are by their own folly to prove their 
death." 

But unfaithful as Israel had been, and cer- 
tain as was her doom, this fact did not obscure 
the divine love. In a passion of indignation at 
her infidelity, Jehovah might say that he would 
love her no more (9. 15). But this did not 
represent his settled state of mind. "Jehovah," 
we read elsewhere, ''loveth the children of Is- 
rael, though they turn untO' other gods" (3. i). 
His love is constant. It is not canceled by hu- 
man sin. This is the great teaching of Hosea. 
This is the gospel that he brought into the 
world. Various figures are used to express the 
intimacy and tenderness of Jehovah's relation 
to Israel. He is the husband, Israel is the wife. 
This figure, as we have seen, forms the sub- 
stance of chapters i to 3. But it is also implied 

119 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

in the rest of the book. Israel, for instance, is 
represented as dweUing in Jehovah's house 
(8. i; 9. 15). Her wickedness or disobedience 
is regularly spoken of as harlotry (4. 11 ; i. 2; 
5. 3, 4; 6. 9). And her moral and material 
improvement is expressed by the idea of a re- 
turn on her own part (5. 4; 6. i; 7. 10, 16; 
12. 6), and that of a redemption on the part 
of Jehovah (7. 13; 13. 14). These expressions 
are evidently allusions to the story of chapters 
I to 3. Another figure used to express Jeho- 
vah's relation to Israel is that of a physician 
(6. i; 7. i; 14. 5; compare 5. 13). He is also 
said to be their only "saviour" (13. 4). But 
more impressive than these figures is that of Je- 
hovah as Father to Israel : ''When Israel was a 
child," says Jehovah, ''then I loved him, and 
called him out of Egypt. ... I taught Ephraim 
to walk ; I took them on my arms, ... I drew 
them with cords of a man, with bands of love" 
(11. 1-4). In view of this tender relationship, 
it is not strange that after a severe denunciation 
of Israel Jehovah cries out, 

"How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? 
How shall I cast thee off, Israel ? 
How shall I make thee as Admah? 
How shall I set thee as Zeboim? 
My heart is turned within me, 
My compassions are kindled together" (11. 8). 
120 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

This, as G. A. Smith says, is the "greatest pas- 
sage in Hosea — deepest if not highest of his 
book." 

From it we pass naturally to a consideration 
of Hosea's message of hope. This message is 
not confined, as in Amos, to the last chapter 
(14. 1-8), but appears in other parts of the book 
as well (i. 10 to 2. i; 2. 14-23; 3. 1-5; 11. 10, 
11). Hosea seems to have used, as Amos did 
not, the hope of a better future to lure the people 
on to obedience to Jehovah. It is interesting to 
observe how he represents the better future as in 
almost every regard the golden counterpart of 
the present. The marriage bond between Israel 
and Jehovah is now broken, but in the better 
future there is to be a new betrothal. *T will 
betroth thee unto me," says Jehovah, "forever; 
yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteous- 
ness, and in justice, and in lovingkindness, and 
in mercies" (2. 19). And Israel in that day will 
make answer "as in the days of her youth, and 
as in the day when she came up out of the land 
of Egypt" (2. 15). At present, the Israelites 
bear names that speak of doom and rejection, 
but in the better future these names are either 
to be changed or to be given a new significance. 
Jezreel, instead of pointing to the battlefield 
where Israel is to be overthrown (i. 4, 5), will 
designate the place where the children of Judah 
121 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

and the children of Israel shall gather together 
under one head and go up from the whole land, 
''for great shall be the day of Jezreel" (i. ii). 
The name "Jezreel," as applied to Israel, will 
then also be true to its etymology. It means 
''God sows," and so, after the exile, Israel will 
be sown again in her own land by Jehovah 
(2. 23). At present, the children of Israel also 
bear the names of Lo-ruhamah ("Unpitied") 
and Lo-ammi ("Not my people"), but these 
names are hereafter to lose their negatives, and 
to signify that the Israelites have again become 
the people of Jehovah and the object of his 
mercy, "the sons of the living God" (2. 23; 
2. i; I. 10). The covenant likewise between 
Jehovah and Israel, which is now broken, will 
then be renewed, and extended so as to include 
the beasts of the field and the birds of the heav- 
ens (2. 18). 

The prophecies of hope in Hosea thus dovetail 
into the rest of the book. Their language and 
style are also thoroughly Hoseanic. Neverthe- 
less, not a few critics reject them all as later 
additions, on the ground chiefly that they are 
inconsistent with the prophet's message of doom. 
Jehovah, for instance, declares in 9. 15 that he 
will drive Israel from his home, and that he 
will love them no more. In 14. 4 on the other 
hand, he says, "I will heal their backsliding, I 
122 



HOSEA THE PROPHET OF LOVE 

will love them freely." Between these two ut- 
terances there is, it is claimed, a complete con- 
tradiction. And formally this is true. But 
those who interpret language, not by the dic- 
tionary, but by the life and experience out of 
which it grows, need have no difficulty in believ- 
ing that both statements came from the same 
man, especially when it is borne in mind that he 
was operating with traditional material. The 
hope of a glorious future was not new with 
Hosea. He accepted it from the past, and may 
not have felt the necessity of harmonizing it 
with his message of doom. Then, besides, we 
are not, of course, to suppose that his prophecies 
of hope and those of doom were composed at 
one and the same time. They may have been 
written at considerable intervals from each 
other. Their present arrangement was probably 
not the work of Hosea himself. But, apart 
from this, strict, formal consistency is no rule of 
life. It belongs only to the closet thinker. No 
one ought to expect it of such an emotional per- 
son as Hosea. His conception, moreover, of the 
passionate love of Jehovah must, it would seem, 
have led ultimately to a message of hope, for 
where there is no faith and no hope, there is no 
love. Love believeth all things, and hopeth all 
things. The promise, therefore, of Israel's re- 
storation was the natural outcome of the proph- 
123 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

et's doctrine of the divine love, and an integral 
part of his message. 

This promise, it is true, was not realized in 
the form in which Hosea expected it. Israel 
went into captivity and was never restored to her 
native land. But hope did not on that account 
die out. Hosea had made the great thought 
of the love of God the permanent possession of 
mankind, and through the centuries this thought 
continued to generate anew fresh hopes for the 
future. These hopes from being national be- 
came international, and from being political 
became spiritual, until, finally, they culminated 
in the supreme conception of human history, 
that of the God-man. Hosea himself barely re- 
fers to the Messianic King (i. ii), but his pro- 
found conception of the divine love points more 
directly than any specific prediction could to 
Bethlehem and Calvary and the right hand of 
God where intercession is made for us. 



124 



CHAPTER IV 
ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

The book of Isaiah has been one of the chief 
battlefields of modern criticism. The struggle is 
now over. It is at present generally agreed 
that a large — indeed, the larger — part of the 
book is not the work of Isaiah, the son of Amoz. 
But this fact has not materially detracted from 
the significance which through the ages has at- 
tached to him. He is still the greatest of 
prophets. 

Amos and Hosea, as we have seen, owe their 
present distinction chiefly to their originality. 
This is also one element in the greatness of 
Isaiah. As Amos was the first to identify re- 
ligion absolutely with the moral law, and as 
Hosea was the first to make religion funda- 
mentally a matter of love, so Isaiah was the 
first to formulate the great doctrine of faith as 
the condition of salvation. In originality, there- 
fore, he ranks along with Amos and Hosea. 
But to this he added other qualities of a unique 
character. First, he possessed extraordinary 
literary ability. As a writer he wielded a two- 
1^5 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

edged sword. ''Never," says Cornill, "did the 
speech of Canaan pour forth with more brilHant 
splendor and triumphant beauty than from his 
Hps. He has a strength and power of language, 
a majesty and sublimity of expression, and an 
inexhaustible richness of fitting and stirring 
imager}^ that overwhelms the reader, nay, be- 
wilders him." In the next place, he had a strong 
and commanding personality, which, by virtue 
of his high social station and long public min- 
istry, he was able to bring to bear with tremen- 
dous power upon the political and religious 
issues of the day. The ministry of Amos had 
apparently been of brief duration, and Hosea 
seems to have stood apart from the controlling 
forces in the nation's life. Isaiah, on the other 
hand, mingled freely with the leaders of the day. 
He watched their intrigues, he sought to cir- 
cumvent their secret plans, he denounced their 
godless policies. Even the king he rebuked to 
his face for his alliance with the Assyrians. In 
this way, through a long ministry of forty to 
fifty years, he exerted a potent influence on the 
public life of the nation, and thus eventual^ 
won for himself a commanding position in the 
affairs of state. It is this fact, coupled with the 
originality of his thought and his unique power 
of expression, that has given to him his pre- 
eminence among the prophets. 

126 ^.-j 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

In view of Isaiah's political importance, it is 
natural that we should be better informed with 
reference to his life than that of either Amos or 
Hosea. Not only does he refer more frequently 
to himself; there are also references to him in 
the second book of Kings (chapters 19, 20; 
compare Isa. 2^7 to 39). Like Amos, he was a 
native of Judah, but, unlike him, he lived in the 
capital city and was probably of noble birth. 
This we infer from the fact that he seems to 
have had ready access to the king and the couit 
(7. 3ff. ; 8. 2; 22. i5ff.)- He was married and 
had two sons. To these he gave symbolic 
names. One was called Shear-yashub — ''A- 
remnant-shall-return" (7. 3); and the other 
bore the less easily pronounceable name, Maher- 
shailal-hash-baz — "Swift-booty-speedy-prey" (8. 
3). These names expressed two important as- 
pects of the prophet's teaching. So wherever 
the lads went, they were "for signs and for won- 
ders in Israel" (8. 18). One can at first hardly 
withhold a feeling of sympathy for them when 
one thinks that they were thus without their 
own consent forced to be the constant bearers 
of such serious messages. But the fact that 
Isaiah gave them these names is an eloquent tes- 
timony to the intensity of his own prophetic 
conviction. He made his whole household con- 
tribute to the one great mission of his life. For 
127 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

his wife also he speaks of as *'the prophetess" 

(8. 3)- 

The prophetic call came to Isaiah '*in the year 
that King Uzziah died." This was about B. C. 
740. The description of the call and the vision 
that accompanied it is one of the most impres- 
sive passages in the Old Testament (chapter 6). 
The prophet, apparently while worshiping in the 
temple (compare verses 4 to 6), sees the Lord in 
his heavenly sanctuary "sitting upon a throne, 
high and lifted up." He is ''the King, Jehovah 
of hosts." Naturally, then, he is accompa- 
nied by an angelic retinue, the seraphim, who 
hide themselves with their wings from the glory 
of his presence and cry one to the other, ''Holy, 
holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts : the whole earth 
is full of his glory" (6. 3). They do not, it 
may be noted, pray as we do that his name may 
be hallowed, and that his kingdom may come 
and his will be done. Theirs is a voice out of 
eternity. It is not a prayer; it is a proclama- 
tion. Already for them the divine name is 
hallowed ; already to their vision the whole earth 
is full of the divine glory. This conception of 
the majesty and holiness of Jehovah was deter- 
minative for the whole ministry of Isaiah. It 
was the thought in which he lived and moved 
and had his being. To him the one great fact 
of the universe was the sovereignty of God. 
128 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAlTH 

"The lofty looks of men shall be brought low, 
and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed 
down, and Jehovah alone shall be exalted" 
(2. 11). This was his almost constant theme. 
Nothing might with impunity exalt itself against 
the Holy One of Israel (5. 19, 24). His will 
was supreme and absolute (14. 2^'). 

Over against such an august presence there 
was only one feeling that could enter the 
prophet's mind, and that was one of unworthi- 
ness and sinfulness. But this feeling did not 
overwhelm him and throw him into a state of 
passivity. He received the assurance of the di- 
vine forgiveness, and then as he heard the voice 
of the Lord saying, ''Whom shall I send, and 
who will go for us?" promptly replied, "Here 
am I; send me." This reply was characteristic 
of the man and of his conception of human na- 
ture. However weak in his view men might be 
without God (31. 3), however helpless and im- 
potent as over against him (10. 15; 2. 22), 
they were by no means necessarily ignoble crea- 
tures, nor was their proper attitude toward him 
one of abject dependence. They might cooperate 
with God, might further his purposes, and so 
by an active faith come to be truly his. Drunk- 
enness (28. 7) and idolatry (2. 8) were un- 
worthy of them as human beings, and so also 
was brutal treatment at the hands of others 
129 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

(3. I4f.)- The prophet beheved m the dignity 
of human nature. And not only did he beheve 
in it, he illustrated it in his own life. His was 
a regal mind. In the face of the most threat- 
ening danger he stood unmoved. He walked 
among men as a king. He trod the high places 
of the earth. 

The commission Isaiah received in his in- 
augural vision was far from an inspiring one. 
His message was to be one of doom, doom to 
both Israel and Judah, and doom, apparently, to 
the bitter end. The reference to "the holy seed" 
in 6. 13, which is lacking in the Septuagint, is 
commonly supposed to be a later addition. But 
even if it belonged to the original call, the 
gloominess of the prophet's commission was not 
greatly relieved thereby, for the delivery of his 
message was to have the reverse effect upon the 
people from that naturally expected. Instead 
of leading to their conversion it was to harden 
their hearts and make them more unresponsive 
than ever to the divine word. Indeed, this ac- 
tual effect is stated as though it were the purpose 
of Isaiah's mission (verses 9, 10). This way 
of putting the case is, of course, ironical, and 
perhaps reflects to some extent the disappoint- 
ing experiences of later years. But the fact 
that it forms a part of the inaugural vision 
makes it clear that the prophet was under no 
130 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

illusion with reference to the outcome of his 
ministry even at the outset. Popular success 
was not to be his. Still, he devoted himself to 
his divinely appointed task with intense earnest- 
ness and carried on his mission through a long 
lifetime with unfailing fidelity and unwearying 
enthusiasm. 

The ministry of Isaiah was so intimately con- 
nected with the history of the nation that we 
need the latter as a background for it. After 
the death of Uzziah, in B. C. 740, Jotham came 
to the throne and ruled perhaps five years. In 
735 he was succeeded by Ahaz, who reigned 
sixteen years. After him came Hezekiah, who 
was king from about B. C. 719 to 686. Con- 
temporaneous with these kings of Judah were 
four Assyrian kings — Tiglathpileser III (B. C. 
747-722), Shalmaneser V (B. C. 727-722), 
Sargon II (B. C. 722-705), and Sennacherib 
(B. C. 705-681), all monarchs of great ability, 
who carried on victorious campaigns along the 
eastern coast of the Mediterranean. The period 
covered by these Assyrian and Judean kings 
was one of the most critical in the whole of Isra- 
elitic history. A number of very important 
events occurred in it. In B. C. 734 took place 
what is known as the Syro-Ephraimitic war. 
Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of 
Ephraim, conspired together to depose Ahaz, 

131 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

king of Judah. The attempt failed, but it led 
Ahaz to appeal to Assyria for aid. The result 
was that the next year an Assyrian army in- 
vaded the northern part of Israel, devastated the 
region round about the sea of Galilee, and de- 
ported a large number of the inhabitants. 
Damascus also was captured the following year 
(B. C. 732). This, as well as the preceding 
event, was a serious blow to Israel. For Da- 
mascus had for some time served as a buffer 
between Israel and Assyria, and its capture left 
the way open to the Assyrian armies whenever 
they might choose again to invade Israelitic ter- 
ritory. 

Ten years later, in B. C. 722 or 721, Samaria 
itself fell after a siege of three years. This put 
an end forever to the larger part of the old Da- 
vidic kingdom. Strangely, Isaiah, while he 
predicted this event (17. i-ii; 9. 8-21; 28. 
1-4), says nothing about it after it occurred. 
Nevertheless, it must have produced a profound 
impression upon the surviving kingdom of 
Judah. It must have made her feel that she, too, 
was standing on the brink. But after a few 
years of peace and quiet, confidence was again 
restored, and in 711, in spite of the strenuous 
opposition of Isaiah, Hezekiah was apparently 
induced to join with Ashdod and other Philis- 
tine cities in a revolt against the Assyrian over- 
132 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

lord. The result was the capture of Ashdod 
and the deportation of her inhabitants. Judah 
seems somehow to have escaped punishment. 
Perhaps on the approach of the Assyrian army 
she may have renewed her allegiance to the 
Assyrian king, and thus have succeeded in rein- 
stating herself in his favor. 

But whatever occurred at this time, the spirit 
of revolt was still kept alive, and after the death 
of Sargon in 705 broke out again with new 
vigor. Isaiah once more attempted to stem the 
tide, but all to no avail. Judah and most of the 
other Palestinian states, spurred on by Egypt, 
threw off the Assyrian yoke. The new king 
Sennacherib was for a while kept busy by other 
revolts in the east, but in 701 appeared in the 
west-land with a large army. The rebellious 
coast cities were speedily subdued, and then de- 
tachments of his troops began marching up the 
valleys of Judah. Forty-six walled cities, so the 
conqueror tells us, were captured, and Hezekiah 
himself was shut up in Jerusalem like a caged 
bird. For a while he resisted, but finally bought 
off the besiegers by paying them thirty talents of 
gold and three hundred talents of silver, and 
surrendering to them a large number of young 
men and women as hostages. 

What took place immediately after this is a 
question. The common opinion has been that 

133 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Sennacherib resumed his march toward Egypt, 
but shortly afterward repented of the agreement 
he had made with Hezekiah, and so in direct 
violation of his word sent back a demand for 
the unconditional surrender of the city. But 
this demand he was unable to make good. Be- 
cause of a pestilence or political disturbances at 
home, his Egyptian campaign was suddenly in- 
terrupted and he was forced to return to As- 
syria. More recently, however, the tendency 
among Assyriologists has been to assign this 
event to a later date. Some put it in B. C. 690, 
and others a few years later still. If this view 
be correct, the campaign of 701 ended with 
Hezekiah's payment of tribute and promise of 
allegiance for the future. It was not, then, 
until ten or fifteen years later that Sennacherib 
demanded the surrender of Jerusalem and was 
providentially prevented from enforcing his de- 
mand. As Isaiah was still active in Jerusalem 
at the time this demand was made, it is clear 
that, if the later date be correct, his ministry 
must have been ten or even fifteen years longer 
than has commonly been supposed. That it 
lasted forty years has always been clear, but the 
more recent view implies that it extended over a 
period of at least fifty and perhaps fifty-five 
years. In harmony with this is the fact that 
according to later Jewish tradition Isaiah met 
134 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

a martyr's death during the reign of Manasseh, 
that is, after B. C. 686. 

With the main events of this important period 
of Hebrew history in mind, let us now consider 
more particularly Isaiah's personal relation to 
them. At the time of the Syro-Ephraimitic war, 
Ahaz was in great fear, and so one day went 
out to inspect the water supply of Jerusalem to 
make sure that it would not be cut off in case 
of a siege (7. 1-13). While there, Isaiah, ac- 
companied by his son Shear-yashub, went out 
to meet him. He assured the king that there 
was no real cause of alarm. The two hostile 
kings, Pekah and Rezin, were not to be taken 
seriously. They were simply two tails of smok- 
ing firebrands, "the last flicker of two expiring 
torches." Before long they would both be sub- 
dued by the Assyrians. Moreover, the very fact 
that their design was an evil one, opposed to the 
will of Jehovah, was a guarantee that it would 
come to naught. With Jehovah as guardian 
and protector of Jerusalem there was no reason 
to fear Samaria and Damascus with their 
merely human chiefs. All that Ahaz needed 
was faith. 

But Ahaz was a child of the Dragon's teeth. 
He required something more substantial than a 
merely spiritual principle to bolster him up. 
Isaiah, therefore, declared that Jehovah, stood 

135 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

ready to perform a miracle, if necessary, in 
order to convince him of the truth of his mes- 
sage, and, furthermore, challenged him to ask 
for such a sign in the heavens above or the earth 
beneath. But Ahaz dared not accept the chal- 
lenge. The fact is he had already decided to 
appeal to Assyria for aid, and in his heart of 
hearts beHeved that the king of Assyria was 
more to be trusted than Jehovah. So the two 
men parted, one seeking with fear and trembling 
the aid of a foreign power, the other buoyed up 
by an unshakable religious faith. 

Events turned out as Isaiah had predicted. 
The two northern kingdoms of Samaria and 
Damascus were soon overrun by the Assyrians, 
and Judah was left in a tributary relation to 
the invaders. When this relationship had once 
been established, Isaiah looked upon it as bind- 
ing and had no sympathy with the spirit of 
revolt. We have a good illustration of this in 
connection with the rebelHon of Ashdod in B. C. 
711 (chapter 20). Efforts had been made for 
years by the emissaries of Ethiopia and Egypt 
to induce Judah to join in the rebellion, and a 
measure of success seems to have attended these 
efforts. But Isaiah opposed them with all the 
intensity of his being. He declared that such 
a revolt would certainly be disastrous, and that 
Egypt and Ethiopia instead of rendering aid to 
136 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

the revolting states would themselves be carried 
away into ignominious captivity. Then, in order 
to emphasize this message, he walked three years 
through the streets of Jerusalem clad as a cap- 
tive, barefoot and almost naked. We get some 
idea of the complete abandon, the almost fanat- 
ical intensity of Isaiah from such a scene as 
this. Here is a man of high social station, prob- 
ably related to the royal family, who is willing 
through three long years to expose himself to 
the jeers and scorn of his fellow townsmen 
in order to impress upon them an important but 
unwelcome truth. 

The same opposition to a break with Assyria 
manifested itself again eight or ten years later 
when another revolt was instigated. Isaiah de- 
nounced any alliance with Egypt (30. 1-7; 
31. 1-3). Those leaders of Judah, he declared, 
who were seeking to bring it about were doing 
so against the will of Jehovah, and would con- 
sequently derive from it no profit, but would, 
rather, be thrown by it into shame and confu- 
sion. Between Egypt, on the one hand, with 
her chariots and horsemen, and Jehovah on the 
other, the prophet saw a complete antithesis. 
"The Egyptians," he says, "are men, and not 
God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit" 
(31. 3). God and spirit he thus directly op- 
posed to men and flesh. And as between the 

137 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

two there was no doubt in his own mind which 
would ultimately triumph. 

But most of his countrymen did not see 
things as he did. One day, for instance, he 
came upon a company of reveling prophets and 
priests, and began to rebuke them not only for 
their drunkenness but also because they were 
by their false visions and judgments encourag- 
ing the spirit of revolt (28. 7-13). In reply 
they asked him if he thought he was talking to 
babes, and then uttered a number of monosylla- 
bles which are really untranslatable. They are 
rendered in the English version by the words, 
''precept upon precept, precept upon precept; 
line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there 
a little." But this rendering fails altogether to 
reproduce the force of the original. And I am 
inclined to think it would be better simply to 
transliterate what we have in the Hebrew, and 
then leave it to the reader to get from it such 
meaning as he can. The actual words used were 
these: ''Tsav le-tsav, tsav le-tsav; kav le-kav, 
kav le-kav" — Here a little, there a little." Now, 
exactly what meaning these words were intended 
to convey we do not know with certainty. Two 
different interpretations are suggested by the 
context. The reference to babes in 28. 9 sug- 
gests that they may have been the words used 
in teaching a child to walk. On the other hand, 
138 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

the reference to strange lips and another tongue 
in 28. 1 1 suggests that we have here an imitation 
of the effect produced upon the ears of a He- 
brew by the unintelHgible speech of a foreigner. 
What, then, the priests and the prophets meant 
was to express their complete indifference to the 
prophet's message. It had no more significance 
to them than the rude jargon of a foreigner. 
But whatever may have been the original mean- 
ing of these monosyllables, they were at least in- 
tended to be scornful. And so Isaiah turned to 
the reveling prophets and priests and said: 
'*You have spurned my instruction, you have re- 
fused to adopt my policy of peace; therefore, 
Jehovah will speak to you in the rude, barbaric 
speech of the invader. He wiU use in address- 
ing you the very words you have attributed to 
me. He will say to you, 'Tsav le-tsav; tsav le- 
tsav; kav le-kav, kav- le-kav' — Here a little, 
there a little,' until he has driven you to your 
ruin." 

Another striking scene from the same period 
of the prophet's ministry is foimd in chapter 22. 
The people have assembled on the housetops. It 
is a gala day. There is shouting and rejoicing. 
What the exact occasion was we do not know. 
As good a suggestion as any is that it was a 
celebration of Hezekiah's declaration of in- 
dependence from Assyria. This the people 
139 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

thought would mean a new era to them. And 
so there was joy and gladness. But the prophet 
looks upon it very differently. He sees in it 
simply an unwarranted revolt, that is certain 
to bring with it a dire penalty. In the midst, 
therefore, of the festive throng he breaks out 
into a lamentation as he thinks of the impend- 
ing doom (verse 2b-3). Some bystanders 
overhear his cry of grief and try to console 
him, but he thrusts them aside, saying, "Look 
away from me, I will weep bitterly; labor 
not to comfort me for the destruction of the 
daughter of my people" (verse 4). The revolt 
from Assyria ought to have been a "call to 
weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and 
to girding with sackcloth" (verse 12). But 
here instead we have a day of frivolous gayety, 
a day of feasting and rejoicing, "slaying oxen 
and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking 
wine" (verse 13). There are those in the as- 
sembled multitude who know well enough the 
prophet's opinion of the revolt, who know that 
he has predicted that it would speedily be fol- 
lowed by ruin and death. But they have no fear, 
and so in their light-hearted festivities encour- 
age one another, saying, with gleeful scorn: 
"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow (as the 
prophet says) we shall die" (verse 13). On 
hearing this, Isaiah's soul is stirred to its deep- 
140 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

est depths, and he cries out — the very words, 
he says, ringing in his ears as he hears them 
from Jehovah — "Surely this iniquity shall not 
be forgiven you till ye die" (verse 14). 

From these scenes it is clear what Isaiah's 
attitude was toward the attempts made by his 
countrymen to throw off the Assyrian yoke. 
But there is another side to the picture. While 
Isaiah opposed the spirit of revolt in Judah and 
while he counseled submission to Assyria, he 
was by no means satisfied with the role that the 
latter was playing in the world. She was, to 
be sure, the rod of Jehovah's anger and the staff 
of his indignation. She was commissioned by 
him to punish Judah and other nations for their 
sins. But this commission she did not herself 
recognize (10. 5-7). It was wholly ideal. It ex- 
isted only in the mind of Jehovah and his 
prophet. She herself was actuated simply by a 
heathen lust for power. She saw no spiritual 
purpose in her campaigns. She acknowledged no 
superintending Providence. She knew no God 
worthy of the name. Against Jehovah she ex- 
alted herself in pride (10. 12-15). To her ag- 
gressions, therefore, it was evident there must be 
some limit. Her arrogance could not be perma- 
nently tolerated. The time must needs come 
when she would overstep the bounds of the di- 
vine patience. And so we find in Isaiah a num- 
141 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

ber of passages in which her sudden overthrow 
is predicted (14. 24-27; 17. 12-14; 10. 16-34; 
30- 27-33; 31- 4-9; 18. 5-6; 29. 5-8). The 
authenticity of all these passages has been called 
in question by some critics on the ground that 
they are inconsistent with other utterances of 
the prophet. There is, it is claimed, no period 
in the prophet's life when the change from the 
conception of Assyria as the instrument of Je- 
hovah to that of Assyria as a God-hostile power 
could have taken place. But this is a mistake. 
Such a period, if it were needed, could be found, 
as Staerk has shown, between B. C. 701 and 690. 
As a matter of fact, however, it is clear from 
what was said above (compare 10. 7-1 1) that 
the idea of Assyria as a power hostile to Jeho- 
vah must have always lain near to the prophefs 
thought. Moreover, this conception was quite 
in line with the old eschatological idea of the 
final overthrow of the enemies of Israel. There- 
fore, all that was needed was some special occa- 
sion to call it forth. And one such occasion at 
least was furnished by Sennacherib (2 Kings 
19 and 20; Isa. 36 to 39). 

When this occasion came, whether in 701 or 
690, or even later, is a question. But whatever 
its date, it consisted in the demand of Sen- 
nacherib for the unconditional surrender of Je- 
rusalem. Whether this demand was in direct 
142 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

violation of an agreement he had just made with 
Hezekiah or not, it was at least unjust. When, 
therefore, it came, Isaiah stepped forward, just 
as he had done in the time of Ahaz when the 
city was threatened in a similar way by Pekah 
and Rezin, and assured the king that there was 
no real ground for fear. Sennacherib, he de- 
clared, would never lay siege to the city, but 
the Lord would put his hook in his nose and 
lead him back by the way that he came (37. 29). 
There was no outward indication that any such 
thing would occur. Nevertheless, this very 
thing took place. On the borders of Egypt, as 
we have already seen, because of a pestilence or 
political disturbances at home, Sennacherib sud- 
denly stayed his advance, returned to Assyria, 
and never again appeared in the west-land. This 
was a remarkable fulfillment of a specific predic- 
tion — perhaps the most remarkable in all the 
Old Testament — and must have produced a pro- 
found impression in Jerusalem. It was not, it 
is true, an exact fulfillment of Isaiah's other 
anti-Assyrian prophecies. But it at least shows 
what may have occasioned them. 

After this survey of the life of Isaiah and the 

history of his times, we are ready to turn to the 

book itself which bears his name. This book 

is one of the longest in the Bible, containing 

143 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

sixty-six chapters. There are two parts to it — 
chapters i to 39 and 40 to 66. The latter forms 
a book by itself, and is commonly assigned to 
another author, known as Second or Deutero- 
Isaiah, who probably lived one hundred and fifty 
or two hundred years later than Isaiah and who 
was hardly a less significant prophet than Isaiah 
himself. The first part of the book may be sub- 
divided into six divisions: chapters i to 12, 13 
to 23, 24 to 27, 28 to 33, 34 and 35, and 36 to 
39. Of these, chapters 36 to 39 are for the most 
part an excerpt from 2 Kings and hence cannot 
be attributed to Isaiah. Chapters 34 and 35 and 
24 to 27 are also generally assigned to later 
hands. This leaves chapters i to 23 and 28 to 
33. In these chapters later additions are no 
doubt to be found, for example, 13. i to 14. 23; 
21. I -1 7. But here, as elsewhere, in the pro- 
phetic literature, the tendency to call in the 
"later hand" has in recent years been carried to 
a wholly unjustifiable extreme. The anti-As- 
syrian prophecies in Isaiah, for instance, the 
Messianic prophecies, and the passages that seem 
to teach the inviolability of Jerusalem have all 
been declared to be later additions. For this 
there is no adequate ground, and against this an- 
alytic procedure there is certain to be a reaction. 
Indeed, the reaction has already set in. Old 
Testament scholars in increasing numbers are 
144 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

coming to see that the Procrustean beds which 
many modern critics have made for the ancient 
prophets are too short to fit the actual historical 
personalities. 

In reading the prophecies of Isaiah we are 
first impressed, as we were also in the cases of 
Amos and Hosea, with the prominence of the 
message of doom. Throughout practically the 
whole of his ministry this seems to have been 
the staple of his public discourses. From his 
inaugural vision in B. C. 740 down, at least, to 
the invasion of Sennacherib in 701, the one 
thing he seems to have been most concerned to 
impress upon the people of his day was the fact 
of the impending doom. He predicted it again 
and again under the most varied forms. These 
predictions were, of course, based upon the con- 
viction of the certainty of their fulfillment. But 
they were not made simply as pieces of vaticina- 
tion. Their purpose was a practical one — to 
arouse the people to moral earnestness and to a 
sense of their obligation to Jehovah. The doom 
thus predicted applied, as we have seen, to Israel 
as well as Judah. Nor was it to be confined to 
the Hebrews. There was to be a day of doom 
for the Assyrians also. Indeed, it was to be 
general. "There shall be," says the prophet, "a 
day of Jehovah of hosts upon all that is proud 
and haughty, and upon all that is lifted up; and 
145 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

it shall be brought low" (2. 12). Isaiah, like 
the other prophets, felt himself standing face 
to face with a great and decisive day of judg- 
ment. The impending catastrophe was not to 
be simply political. It was to be an "overflow- 
ing scourge" (28. 15, 18), involving the destiny 
of all. So back of his message of doom lay 
all the grounds of passionate earnestness that 
are to be found in the discourses of any preacher 
who is dealing with the eternal issues of life. 

A second fact that impresses us as we read 
the prophecies of Isaiah is that the moral and 
religious condition of Judah in his time was 
essentially the same as that of Israel in the prac- 
tically contemporaneous period of Amos and 
Hosea. There was the same oppression of the 
poor by the rich, the same general corruption, 
the same idolatry, the same trust in ceremonial- 
ism, and the same seeking of foreign aid. Isaiah 
condemns the princes as ''rebellious, and com- 
panions of thieves" (i. 23). They "crush," he 
says, "my people, and grind the face of the 
poor" (3. 15). They "justify the wicked for 
a bribe" (5. 23), and "rob the poor of my people 
of their right" (10. 2). Drunkenness he like- 
wise condemns (5. 11, 22; 28. 7), and the luxury 
of the wanton women (3. i6ff.). The whole 
people, he says, are "laden with iniquity, a seed 
of evildoers" (i. 4). "The whole head is sick, 
146 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

and the whole heart faint. From the sole of 
the foot even unto the head there is no sound- 
ness in it" (i. 5, 6). The land, furthermore, is 
"full of idols"; the people "worship the work 
of their own hands, that which their own fingers 
have made" (2. 8). They are also "full of 
divination, and are soothsayers like the Philis- 
tines, and practice sorcery as the children of 
foreigners" (2. 6, emended text). To be sure, 
they profess belief in Jehovah. They are as- 
siduous in the performance of sacrifices and the 
offering of incense. But their worship is wholly 
formal. "They draw nigh unto me with their 
mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but 
have removed their heart far from me, and their 
fear of me is a commandment of men which 
hath been taught them" (29. 13). What they 
really believe in is not Jehovah, but silver and 
gold, horses and chariots, soldiers and horsemen. 
Hence, instead of seeking the aid of Jehovah 
they seek the aid of foreign powers. They go 
first to Assyria, and then when the Assyrian 
overlordship becomes burdensome seek the aid 
of Egypt. Their policy throughout is an irre- 
ligious militarism. It is a placing of trust in 
men and flesh rather than in God and spirit. 

In meeting this general situation Isaiah's tone 
resembles that of Amos rather than that of 
Hosea. In only one instance do we find a 
147 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

distinctly Hoseanic or Jeremianic strain in his 
prophecies (22. 4). As a rule, he is stern and 
severe, showing very little sympathy v^ith the 
wrongdoers of his day. Take, for instance, 
the woes in 5. 8-23 on the greedy land-grab- 
bers (verses 8-10), the careless revelers (verses 
11-13), the frivolous unbelievers (verses 18, 
19), the moral skeptics (verse 20), the sophists 
of the time (verse 21), and the dissolute and 
corrupt judges (verses 22, 23). Or take the 
treatment of religious rites and ceremonies in 
I. 11-17: 

What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith 

Jehovah : 
I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the 

fat of fed beasts; 
And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, 

or of he-goats. 
When ye come to appear before me, 
Who hath required this at your hand, to trample my 

courts? 
Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination 

unto me; 
New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies, — I can- 
not away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. 
Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul 

hateth ; 
They are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them. 
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine 

eyes from you; 
Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: 
Your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you 

clean ; 

148 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; 
Cease to do evil, learn to do well; 
Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, 
Judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 

This is one of the most important utterances 
anywhere to be found on the worthlessness of 
mere ceremoniaHsm (compare Amos 5. 21-24; 
Hos. 6. 6; Mic. 6. 6-8). It is followed by a 
verse which looks at first like a promise of for- 
giveness (i. 18). Indeed, it is so rendered in 
the English version: "Come now, and let us 
reason together, saith Jehovah : though your sins 
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; 
though they be red like crimson, they shall be 
as wool." But such an offer of pardon is hardly 
in harmony with the preceding passage nor with 
the tone of the Isaianic prophecies as a whole. It 
is probable, therefore, that the last two sen- 
tences of the verse should be treated as ques- 
tions : "Come, let us implead one another, saith 
Jehovah: if your sins be as scarlet, shall they 
become white as snow ? Be they red as crimson, 
shall they become as wool?" The answer, of 
course, is an emphatic "No." The popular idea 
that sins may be removed by sacrifices is wholly 
without foundation. The very thought of it is 
utterly to be spurned. 

But while the general tone of Isaiah's proph- 
ecies thus resembles that of Amos, there is one 

149 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

important regard in which his method of deal- 
ing with the evils of his day is like that of 
Hosea. Hosea carried back all the sins of the 
people to one root evil — that of unfaithfulness 
to Jehovah. Their immorality, their idolatry, 
their man-made kings, their seeking of foreign 
aid, all he regarded as instances of apostasy 
from Jehovah. And so in Isaiah we find a sim- 
ilar tendency to reduce the moral and religious 
life to one underlying principle. This principle 
in Isaiah is faith. In his view, then, the cardinal 
sin of Israel is unbelief or pride. In developing 
this idea of one root principle in the moral and 
religious life, Isaiah is not so thoroughgoing as 
Hosea. He does not speak so frequently of 
faith as Hosea does of love, nor does he ascribe 
the different evils of his day to unbelief or pride 
in the same direct way that Hosea attributes 
them to disloyalty to Jehovah. Nevertheless, it 
is clear to the careful student that this repre- 
sents his fundamental thought. 

It was in connection with the political policy 
of Judah that Isaiah's doctrine of faith received 
its clearest expression. That policy was, when 
the country was in danger or oppressed, to seek 
aid from outside. Ahaz, for instance, when he 
was threatened by Pekah and Rezin, sought help 
from Assyria. And later Hezekiah, when the 
Assyrian yoke became heavy, appealed to Egypt 
150 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

for relief. As against this policy, Isaiah pleaded 
for faith in Jehovah. To Ahaz, who was trem- 
bling with fear at the approach of the two kings 
from the north, he said, "Take heed, and be 
quiet; fear not, neither let thy heart be faint" 
(7. 4). And then after assuring him that Je- 
hovah would not permit the design of these en- 
emies to be carried out, he adds this word of 
warning: "If ye will not believe, surely ye shall 
not be established" (7. 9). In the original this 
memorable utterance contains a paronomasia, 
which makes it somewhat more striking. "No 
faith, no fixity" is the way McFadyen renders 
it. G. A. Smith puts it thus: "If ye will not 
have faith, ye shall not have staith." And Box 
has this rendering: "Verily, if thou have no 
strong trust — no trusty stronghold shall be 
thine." The important thing, however, is not 
the form of the statement but its meaning. It 
is here clearly stated — and for the first time so 
far as we know — that faith is the condition of 
salvation. If Judah was to be saved, it could 
be only by faith in Jehovah. His presence in Je- 
rusalem, typified by the "waters of Shiloah that 
go softly," was their only security. When the 
people, therefore, refused these waters the 
prophet declared that they would certainly be 
deluged by the overflowing waters of the 
Euphrates (8. 5-8). Assyria whom they had 
151 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

appealed to for help would prove the cause of 
their ruin. 

Likewise, in the time of Hezekiah, when the 
spirit of revolt against Assyria broke out, and 
an alliance was about to be made with Egypt, 
Isaiah again pleaded for a policy of peace and 
trust. "This," he said, "is the rest, give ye rest 
to him that is weary ; and this is the refreshing : 
yet they would not hear" (28. 12). In the 
midst of the intriguing and the confusion he 
therefore pointed once more to the quiet pres- 
ence of Jehovah in Jerusalem as the one ground 
of confidence. "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, 
Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, 
a tried stone, a precious corner stone of sure 
foundation: he that believeth shall not be in 
haste" (28. 16). And then a little later he 
added : "By sitting still and resting shall ye be 
saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your 
strength. And ye would not" (30. 15). Some- 
what later still — perhaps as late as B. C. 690 — 
an embassy from Ethiopia came to Jerusalem, 
evidently for the purpose of inducing Judah to 
join in a league against Assyria. The time 
seems to have been a perilous one. The Assyr- 
ian armies were again threatening the west- 
land. Terror and confusion were abroad. Nev- 
ertheless, Isaiah remained undisturbed, and sent 
the Ethiopian ambassadors away with the assur- 
152 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

ance that he saw no occasion for alarm. "For 
thus," he says, "hath Jehovah said unto me, I 
will be still, and I will look on in my dwelling 
place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of 
dew in the heat of harvest" (i8. 4). In this 
sublime utterance we have the climax of the 
prophet's expression of faith. What more per- 
fect symbols of the divine calm could be found 
than the motionless air of a hot summer day 
and the invisible cloud of dew in harvest time! 
And what finer and surer evidence could there 
be of the prophet's own unruffled trust than this 
vivid apprehension on his part of the eternal 
calm of God in the midst of earth's turmoil ! 

In all the passages just cited Isaiah advocates, 
directly or indirectly, trust in Jehovah as against 
all political intriguing. It is thus an interesting 
fact that the doctrine of faith was first formu- 
lated as a political or rather anti-political policy. 
Isaiah took the position that it was unwise for 
Judah to enter into entangling alliances with 
other nations, that such alliances would simply 
mean ruin to herself. The prudent thing for 
her to do was to accept the status quo, trust in 
Jehovah, do his will, and await the time when 
he himself would redeem her. This policy has 
been commended by modern critics as that of a 
far-sighted statesman. And it is probably true 
that Isaiah estimated more correctly than the 
153 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Judean kings and their counselors the political 
forces of the day. He saw more clearly than 
they the hopelessness of any revolt against As- 
syria. But still it would be a mistake to sup- 
pose that the policy he advocated was simply the 
outcome of clear political insight. It was, 
rather, the expression of an idealistic faith. He 
believed that the really controlling forces in the 
world were spiritual, not material; divine, not 
human. Hence, the one important thing for 
Judah to do was to obey the will of God, to put 
herself on his side. It was thus a deep religious 
conviction that was at once the source and sub- 
stance of Isaiah's political policy. In the ordi- 
nary sense of the term he was not a statesman 
at all. He was, to be sure, interested in poli- 
tics. The conditions of his time and his own 
social position made that inevitable. But his 
interest was that of the seer rather than that of 
the man of affairs. In him the idealist com- 
pletely overshadowed the practical administra- 
tor. At bottom he was a religious teacher. And 
the burden of his message was the doctrine of 
faith. He applied this doctrine most clearly to 
the political conditions of his time. But it was 
by no means simply a political principle with 
him. It was a profound personal experience, 
the mainspring of his life. When adverse con- 
ditions, for instance, confronted him, when he 
154 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

felt that he was accomplishing little or nothing, 
he turned his face upward and said, 'Twill wait 
for Jehovah, that hideth his face from the house 
of Jacob, and I will look for him" (8. 17). 

But faith with Isaiah took on a more definite 
form than has thus far been indicated. It led 
him on at least two occasions to assert that Je- 
rusalem would not be captured by the enemy 
then threatening it. These two occasions were 
the Syro-Ephraimitic war (B. C. 734) and the 
invasion of Sennacherib (B. C. 701 or 690). 
In both of these instances the enemy was acting 
in defiance of the will of Jehovah, and hence 
Jerusalem was safe. Some hold that the prophet 
did not confine his teaching on this point to any 
specific occasions, but that he made of the in- 
violability of Jerusalem a "dogma." This, how- 
ever, is inconsistent with a number of utterances 
in which he predicts the complete destruction of 
the city (32. 14; 22. 14; 3. 26; 5. 5!; 6. iif.). 
Then, too, it is inherently improbable that the 
man who believed that the glory of Jehovah 
filled the whole earth, and that his government 
was righteous and impartial, would hold to the 
inviolable sacredness of any place regardless 
of the character of its inhabitants. He might 
assert with perfect confidence that under cer- 
tain circumstances Jerusalem would not be cap- 
tured, and he might see in Zion a symbol of the 

155 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

eternal kingdom of God (28. 16; 8. 18), but 
he would hardly make the ability of the city to 
resist all foreign attacks a vital question of 
faith. This was a later misconstruction of his 
teaching, and not a part of his own message. 

Another definite expression of Isaiah's faith 
is to be found in his doctrine of the remnant 
(4. 2f.; 7. 3; 10. 2off.; II. 16; 28. 5; 37. 31). 
The idea of a remnant who would be saved out 
of the impending doom was not new with 
Isaiah. It appears in Amos (5. i4f.), ^iid also 
in the account of Elijah in First Kings (19. 18). 
It was evidently a familiar idea in the time of 
Isaiah. Otherwise he would not have embodied 
it in the symbolical name given to his older son 
(7. 3). "A-remnant-shall-retum" would have 
meant nothing to the people, if the conception 
had been an altogether new one. Hence Isaiah 
did not originate the idea of the salvation of a 
remnant, but he made it more prominent than 
the preceding prophets had done. In and of it- 
self the idea has a double significance: it im- 
plies that a remnant, and only a remnant, will be 
saved. There is thus an element of doom in it. 
On the other hand, it implies that the whole na- 
tion is not to be destroyed. Some will return 
to Jehovah and be preserved. There is, accord- 
ingly, in it also an element of hope. And this 
is the idea usually associated with it (10. 2off.). 
156 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

We have then in this conception of the remnant 
the connecting hnk between the prophetic mes- 
sage of doom and that of hope. In the impend- 
ing judgment a few will be saved, and they will 
become the holy seed from which a new nation 
or community will grow. 

The Messianic prophecies in Isaiah, like those 
in Amos and Hosea, are rejected by some critics. 
But the reasons given for their rejection lose 
their force as scon as it is recognized that the 
Messianic hope did not originate with Isaiah or 
any of the other literary prophets. It was cur- 
rent in Israel long before their time and as- 
sumed a great variety of forms. What the 
literary prophets did was to take this traditional 
material, purge it of its heathen elements, and 
give to it a distinctly ethical character. They 
did not, however, wholly recast it. Some of the 
older forms were retained. Hence, we should 
not be surprised if the representations which 
any particular prophet gives of the future are 
not all of one and the same piece and do not 
harmonize perfectly with his other utterances. 
More or less of diversity under the circumstances 
is to be expected. And so it is in Isaiah. In 
some of his Messianic prophecies the personal 
Messiah is in the foreground; in others he does 
not appear at all. In some it is a religious com- 
157 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

munity that seems to be in the prophet's mirid; 
in others it is an organized state with judges 
and counselors. In some a miraculous transfor- 
mation of nature is apparently expected; in 
others a more natural advent of the new order. 
It is evident from this that Isaiah had no inde- 
pendent and final conception of the new and 
transformed Israel. One aspect of the tradi- 
tional hope now appealed to him, and now an- 
other. And as each came he gave it poetic ex- 
pression. The divergent details were to him 
matters of indifference. The only essential 
thing was the conviction that Jehovah through 
the faithful in Israel would work out his own 
righteous and beneficent purpose in the world. 

Some of Isaiah's prophecies of the future, as 
stated above, represent Israel as a religious com- 
munity. These may be connected with 8. 16-18, 
where we read of a band of disciples that gath- 
ered about the prophet. It is natural for us to 
see in this band the nucleus of the remnant that 
was to be saved in the impending judgment. 
W. Robertson Smith sees in it also "the birth 
of the conception of the church, the first step in 
the emancipation of spiritual religion from the 
forms of political life." Whether this be cor- 
rect or not, there can be no doubt that Isaiah, 
like Hosea, had the ideal conception of the 
Church of God. His own band of disciples 
158 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAItH 

would naturally suggest it, and so also would 
his own antimilitary policy. There is, then, no 
reason why he may not in some exalted moment 
have attributed to the purified and redeemed 
people of Israel such a mission as we find in 
2. 2-4, one of the sublimes t passages of all 
Scripture. ^'The mountain of Jehovah's house," 
he says, "shall be established at the head of the 
mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; 
and all nations shall flow unto it. And many 
peoples shall go and say, Come ye, and let us 
go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house 
of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of 
his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for out 
of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of 
Jehovah from Jerusalem. And he will judge 
between the nations, and will decide concerning 
many peoples; and they shall beat their swords 
into plowshares, and their spears into pruning- 
hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any more." 
In general harmony with this picture is also that 
in 4. 2-6, according to which everyone that is 
left in Zion is to be called holy, and the striking 
characteristic of the redeemed city is to be the 
presence of Jehovah, the Shekinah. 

On the other hand, we have in i. 26 a quite 
different representation. The restored city, to 
be sure, is to be a city of righteousness, a faith- 
159 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

ful city. But the ideal here presented is polit- 
ical and consists in the restoration of the best 
days of the past. Jehovah after purging the 
city is to restore her "judges as at the first" 
and her "counselors as at the beginning." In 
general harmony with this conception are the 
later pictures of an ideal king of the Davidic 
line in 9. 2-7; 11. 1-9; and 32. 1-5. Only this 
king is to far surpass any king of the past. He 
is to be endowed in a unique degree with the 
Spirit of Jehovah, the spirit of wisdom and of 
might. He is to be called Wonderful Coun- 
selor, God-like Hero, Everlasting Father, Prince 
of Peace. He is to break the rod of the op- 
pressor, extend the dominion of David, and 
introduce a reign of perfect righteousness and 
endless peace. Even the animal world is to share 
in this transformation. The wild beasts are to 
lose their predatory instincts, and all animate 
beings are to live in peace and harmony. 

In connection with these passages there is one 
in chapter 7, which has awakened much discus- 
sion and calls for special attention (verses 
14-17). This is the famous Immanuel proph- 
ecy: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear 
a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (verse 
14). So the EngHsh version reads. As is well 
known, this prophecy is applied in the New Tes- 
tament (Matt. I. 23) to the birth of Jesus. But 
160 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITH 

it is now generally conceded that, while this ap- 
plication was perfectly legitimate from the New 
Testament point of view, it did not express the 
strict historical meaning of the passage. The He- 
brew word rendered "virgin" might also be trans- 
lated "young wife." The idea of virginity is not 
necessarily implied in it. It simply designates 
a young woman of marriageable age. Then, 
too, the context makes it evident that an event 
in the near future is referred to, and not one 
that took place seven hundred years later. But 
with this limitation the meaning is still far from 
clear. The interpretation which is at present 
perhaps the most widely accepted ascribes no spe- 
cial significance to the child Immanuel. The 
name means "God-is-with-us," and might be 
given to any child born at the time of some 
national victory or of some special good for- 
tune. In this instance the supposed occa- 
sion of the giving of the name is the with- 
drawal of the enemies of Judah, Pekah and 
Rezin, from Jerusalem. This event will take 
place within nine months, for the young 
woman who is to be the mother of Immanuel is 
already with child. Verse i6 then adds that 
two or three years later the land of Pekah and 
Rezin itself will be devastated. In harmony 
with this, 8. 4 is interpreted as meaning that still 
sooner, within a year, that is, three months after 
161 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

the birth of Immanuel, the two northern cap- 
itals, Samaria and Damascus, will be captured. 
But to attribute to Isaiah such a definite chrono- 
logical scheme is to be untrue to the fluid and 
poetic character of his mind and to the broad 
perspective of prophecy in general. Further- 
more, the interpretation just given of 7. 14 
makes it necessary either to eliminate verses 15 
and 17 or to hold that the sign given Ahaz was 
a double one, verses 14 and 16 promising speedy 
relief from the northern kings, and verses 15 
and 17 predicting that Judah herself would be 
subjected to a severe chastisement shortly after 
the fall of the two northern kingdoms. The 
latter, however, unduly complicates the sign, and 
the former is in itself improbable. The cur- 
rent interpretation of the passage is, therefore, 
to be rejected. 

It is my opinion that the clause "whose two 
kings thou abhorrest," in verse 16, is a later 
scribal addition and that the key to the rest 
of the passage is to be found in Amos 3. 2 and 
5. 18. Just as there was in the eighth century 
before Christ a popular belief in the election of 
Israel and in the "day of Jehovah," so there was 
a popular belief in the coming of a Messiah. 
According to this popular belief, some well- 
known young woman, a young wife, or perhaps 
a virgin, was to bear a son, who was to be called 
162 



ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF FAITPI 

Immanuel, and who as a mere child was to 
deliver Israel from her enemies. What Isaiah, 
then, says in 7. 14 is that this remarkable child 
is soon to be born. The Messianic era is about 
to dawn. But instead of bringing deliverance to 
the people, its coming will be marked by deso- 
lation and ruin. The expected Messiah will as 
a child be compelled to eat the food of priva- 
tion (verse 15), and the whole land will be 
devastated (verses 16, 17). Just, then, as Amos 
took the popular belief in the election of Israel 
and in the day of Jehovah and turned them 
against the people, asserting that the election 
of Israel meant that they would all the more 
certainly be punished for their sins, and declar- 
ing that the day of Jehovah would be a day of 
darkness, not of light, so Isaiah took the popu- 
lar belief in a Messiah and turned it against 
Ahaz and his followers. Immanuel, he said, 
would indeed come, and more speedily than 
they expected, but his coming would be at- 
tended by a terrible national misfortune in- 
stead of the reverse. Just as Amos, how- 
ever, did not altogether reject the popular belief 
in the election of Israel and in the day of Jeho- 
vah, but gave to them a new moral significance, 
so Isaiah did not completely repudiate the pop- 
ular Messianic faith, but gave to it a higher eth- 
ical interpretation. The Messianic dawn, he de- 
163 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

dared, would mean to Ahaz and the unbelieving 
nation ruin, but to the faithful remnant it would 
mean the reign of an ideal King in endless peace 
and perfect righteousness. Immanuel to them 
would be the true Messiah. 

Isaiah, in the light of this, was not the creator 
of the Messianic hope but its critic. He took 
the traditional belief, purged it of its selfish 
nationalism, and made it the vehicle of a lofty 
idealism. Here it is that the real significance of 
his visions of the future is to be found. They 
reveal a clear, strong, and unwavering faith in 
the ideal and eternal kingdom of righteousness. 
The particular forms under which he conceived 
this kingdom, noble as they are, were not final. 
God had yet greater things in store for the ages 
to come. But the underlying principle of faith 
itself has not been superseded. Time and change 
have had no aging effect upon it. It remains as 
much as ever the basis and very essence of true 
religion. *Tt doth not yet appear what we shall 
be" (i John 3. 2), but, with Isaiah, we still 
look for "a city which hath foundations, whose 
builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11. 10). 



164 



CHAPTER V 

JEREMIAH THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL 
PIETY 

"The prophetic ideas," says A. B. Davidson, 
"form but half of the teaching of the prophets; 
the greater half lies in their own life and per- 
sonal relation to God." This statement is pre- 
eminently true as applied to Jeremiah. The most 
significant thing about him is not his public 
message to Israel, but his own personal religious 
life. As we read his book, what interests and 
impresses us is not so much the objective pro- 
phetic word itself as it is its effect upon himself 
and upon his relation to God and his fellowmen. 
It is the reaction of his own nature upon his 
prophetic office and upon his total environment 
that forms the most instructive feature of his 
ministry. No doubt the earlier prophets many 
of them had had experiences similar to those of 
Jeremiah. But they had not yet become intro- 
spective, had not learned to analyze their own 
mental states, had not yet formed the habit of 
reflecting upon their own personal experiences. 
Their thought was objective; they lost them- 
selves in their message. Not so, however, Jere- 

165 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

miah. He was by nature a psychologist. What 
interested him was the things of the heart. It 
was impossible for him completely to submerge 
himself in his mission to the nation. However 
engrossing his public tasks were, he could not 
overlook the fact that as a prophet he stood in 
an intimate personal relation to God, and that 
this relationship was a matter of vital religious 
concern. The supreme thing in his thought was 
still the nation and its fate, but along with this 
went the irrepressible problem of his own per- 
sonal experiences. The ways of God in them, 
as well as in the life of the nation, called for ex- 
planation. 

Jeremiah was the first prophet to raise this 
question. In him personal religion came to self- 
consciousness. It is this fact that gives to him 
his unique significance in the history of religion. 
The earlier prophets had laid down the essential 
principles of religion, had made religion a mat- 
ter of ethics, of holy love, and of moral faith, 
and had no doubt exemplified these qualities in 
their own private life. But they did not ap- 
parently look upon their own experience of 
religion as sufficiently important to be worthy 
of a place in their recorded utterances. Re- 
ligion with them seems to have been primarily 
a national afifair. It was Jeremiah who first 
gave to it the personal note. It was he who first 
i66 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

made the soul of the individual the true seat of 
religion. But this does not mean that he gave 
up the national point of view. Through all his 
ministry he continued to address himself to the 
nation as such. It simply means that he made 
the conception of religion deeper and more in- 
ward. He made its essential nature consist in 
personal fellowship with God. This implies the 
ascription of new importance to the individual. 
It also implies that true religion is not a matter 
of race, but is as broad as humanity itself. But 
Jeremiah does not especially concern himself 
with these implications. He leaves them to be 
worked out by his two great successors. What 
he is himself especially interested in is the actual, 
vital experience of God. And this he finds in 
himself, in his own soul. He, as Duhm says, 
"first discovered the soul and its significance for 
rehgion." 

It is here that Jeremiah's chief contribution 
to the development of religion is to be found. 
And this contribution, it is to be borne in mind, 
was not merely formal in character. It was not 
merely a new idea let loose among men. It was 
a new spiritual force, backed up and made vital 
by a great personality. For Jeremiah not only 
gave verbal expression to the idea that true piety 
consists in the fellowship of the individual soul 
with God. He illustrated it in his own life, 
167 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

and testified his loyal adherence to it by a long 
ministry of strife, suffering, and martyrdom. 
What he then gave to his people was not simply 
a new and deeper conception of religion, but a 
noble and inspiring example. Some scholars 
have seen in Isaiah 53 a picture of him and his 
sufferings. This is probably incorrect. But it 
is still true that there is in the whole history 
of prophecy no figure that has had such power 
of appeal to the human heart as that of Jeremiah. 
He does not, to be sure, compare with Isaiah in 
strength, in brilliancy, in literary power, and in 
majesty of conception; but in depth of feeling, 
in insight into human nature, in the power of 
sympathy, and in the grasp of those truths of 
religion which most completely meet the com- 
mon needs of men, he far surpasses him. In 
these regards he comes nearer than any other 
Old Testament prophet to the Christian stand- 
point, and in this sense might be called the great- 
est of the prophets. In any case, he stands sec- 
ond only to Isaiah. 

With reference to Jeremiah's life we are for- 
tunately better informed than with reference to 
that of any other prophet. This is due partly 
to his singular habit of self -revelation, and partly 
to the fact that he had a Boswell. His scribe 
i Baruch, who was with him in Jerusalem 
(32. 12) and who accompanied him to Egypt 
168 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

(43. 4-7), seems to have written a biography of 
his master, which was freely used in the com- 
pilation of the present book of Jeremiah. 

The prophetic call came to Jeremiah in B. C. 
626, the thirteenth year of the reign of Joslah. 
He was then a young man, so that he must have 
been born about B. C. 650. His home was in 
Anathoth, a town three miles northeast of Jeru- 
salem. He came from a priestly family and so 
had probably been trained in the things of God 
from childhood. Nevertheless, when he received 
the prophetic call he shrank from it and 
pleaded his youth as a ground of his inability 
to undertake so important a task (i. 6). His 
reluctance at this point suggests, by way of con- 
trast, the readiness of Isaiah. When Jehovah 
said, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for 
us?" Isaiah replied with confidence, "Here am 
I; send me." This difference between the two 
men does not argue a greater degree of piety 
or consecration on the part of either, but simply 
points to a difference of temperament. Isaiah 
was strong, self-reliant, equal to any emergency. 
Jeremiah, on the other hand, was by nature 
weak, timid, distrustful of his own powers. But 
this did not unfit him for the prophetic office. 
"There are," says Paul, "diversities of gifts, 
but the same spirit." God is able to use the most 
varied natures in his work. Indeed, the very 
169 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

weakness of Jeremiah made it possible for God 
to exhibit in him the special effects of the Spirit's 
presence in a way that could not have been done 
in a stronger man. Hence, we have in Jeremiah 
that remarkable contrast of nature which makes 
his prophetic career at once so human and so di- 
vine. ''As man he melts in tears and pines away 
in sympathy; as the bearer of God's word he 
is firm and hard like pillar and wall, on which 
the storm of a nation's wrath breaks in vain" 
(OrelH). 

There are two other points that should also 
be mentioned in connection with the call of 
Jeremiah. First, he was predestined for the 
prophetic office from his birth (i. 5). This is 
a great conviction for anyone to have, but it 
was especially significant in the time of Jere- 
miah. Before his day it was chiefly the nation 
whose destiny was thought of as directed by 
Jehovah. Little was said of the individual. Ac- 
cordingly, it must have been a very impressive 
thought when it was first brought home to the 
mind of Jeremiah that even while in his mother's 
womb Jehovah had set him aside for his life- 
work. The full import of the idea probably 
never dawned upon him, nor was he able always 
to live up to it. But in so far as he understood 
it and made it his own, it solved for him the 
problem of life. Secondly, it should be observed 
170 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

that Jeremiah was called to be a prophet not 
only to Judah but to the nations (i. 5, 10). 
This does not mean that he was to go as a mis- 
sionary to other nations. His ministry was con- 
fined to the chosen people quite as much as was 
that of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. But the pro- 
phetic outlook was never limited to Israel 
(28. 8). The fate of Israel involved that of 
other nations. This was so in the time of Amos 
and Isaiah, and it was especially the case in the 
time of Jeremiah. For in his time Judah had 
been for a century or more a vassal of Assyria. 
During this period her history had been simply 
an episode in the history of the world. It was 
then inevitable that a prophet to Judah at this 
time should be a prophet to the nations. More- 
over, it should not be forgotten that there was 
a super-historical, eschatological element in the 
teaching of the prophets. They dealt not simply 
with impending events of a national or inter- 
national character, but with finalities, and final- 
ities that involved not only Israel but the whole 
world. This is especially clear in the case of 
Zephaniah, whose prophecy just preceded the 
call of Jeremiah. Zephaniah depicts in vivid 
terms the approaching day of Jehovah, a day 
that means doom not only for the people of Je- 
rusalem but for all mankind. In Jeremiah this 
eschatological outlook is not so prominent, but 
171 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

it is by no means lacking. And in its light it is 
still further evident why his commission em- 
braced not only Israel but the nations. 

Jeremiah's ministry, which began in B. C. 626, 
extended beyond the fall of Jerusalem in B. C. 
586. This closing period of Judah's history was 
an eventful one both without and within the 
little kingdom. The year of Jeremiah's pro- 
phetic call witnessed the death of the last of the 
great kings of Assyria. Shortly before this, As- 
syria had conquered Egypt and attained its 
greatest extension of power. But after the death 
of Ashurbanipal it rapidly declined, and in B. C. 
606 its proud city Nineveh fell. This sudden 
decline of Assyria was due in part to an invasion 
of the Scythians, who, according to Herodotus, 
terrorized southwestern Asia for twenty-eight 
years — from B. C. 640 to 612. It was not they, 
however, but the new Chaldean kingdom that 
fell heir to what was left of the Assyrian em- 
pire at the time of its overthrow. For a while 
there was a question as to whether Syria and 
Palestine would fall to Egypt or Babylonia. 
The Egyptian king Necho had in B. C. 608 
taken possession of the territory and was pre- 
pared to assert his claim to it. But in 605 he 
met Nebuchadrezzar at the great battle of Car- 
chemish and was decisively defeated. This gave 
Syria and Palestine to the new Babylonian em- 
172 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

pire, in whose power they remained until the 
capture of Babylon in B. C. 538. 

The prophet Nahum welcomed the approach- 
ing fall of Nineveh with an exultant song of 
doom. But events failed to justify his exulta- 
tion. The decline of Assyria meant eventually 
for Judah simply a change of masters. Under 
Josiah a period of independence seems to have 
been enjoyed, but it was cut short by his sudden 
and tragic death on the field of Megiddo. He 
had rashly attempted to stay the eastward ad- 
vance of Necho, and as a result his own king- 
dom became a tributary to Egypt. His younger 
son Jehoahaz, who was proclaimed king by the 
people, was three months later carried away as 
a captive, never to return, and in his stead an 
older son, Jehoiakim, ascended the throne as 
a vassal of Necho. This subjection to Egypt 
continued until the battle of Carchemish in B. C. 
605, after which there was apparently another 
brief period of independence. At least Jehoia- 
kim seems not to have paid tribute to Nebucha- 
drezzar until four or five years later (2 Kings 
24. i). He himself would probably have been 
quite willing to continue in a tributary relation- 
ship, but the people, who had so recently tasted 
the joys of freedom and were, furthermore, in- 
flamed by religious fanaticism, were not disposed 
to brook again a foreign yoke. So in B. C. 597, 
173 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

after paying tribute three years, they revolted. 
Before the Babylonian army could reach Jeru- 
salem Jehoiakim died, and was succeeded by 
his son Jehoiachin. Jehoiachin after a reign of 
three months surrendered to Nebuchadrezzar, 
and was carried as a captive to Babylon along 
with the flower of the nation. After such a 
catastrophe it might naturally be supposed that 
the spirit of the people would have been broken. 
But it did not so turn out. The same passionate, 
fanatical longing for independence asserted it- 
self under the new king Zedekiah, and finally 
led to another revolt which resulted in the cap- 
ture and destruction of Jerusalem in B. C. 586. 
Such were the troublous times in which Jere- 
miah lived — times that tried men's souls. Let 
us now trace the prophet's own fortunes through 
them. His ministry may naturally be divided 
into three periods, that under Josiah (B. C. 626- 
608), that under Jehoiakim (B. C. 608-597), 
and that under Zedekiah (B. C. 597-586). The 
reign of Josiah was a comparatively quiet one. 
When Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry 
there was imminent danger that the country 
would be overrun by the dreaded Scythians. 
Jeremiah himself confidently expected and pre- 
dicted it (5. T5ff. ; 6. 22ff.). Indeed, it was 
this danger that apparently gave such urgency 
to his earlier discourses as they are preserved 
174 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

for us in the so-called Scythian Songs of chap- 
ters two to six. But in spite of the prophet's 
predictions this particular peril failed to ma- 
terialize. The Scythians, as they moved south- 
ward toward Egypt in B. C. 623-622, left Judah 
unmolested. As this apparently contradicted 
the plain words of the young prophet, one natu- 
rally wonders what effect it had upon him. 
Some think the failure of his prediction to come 
true was a severe blow both to him personally 
and to his standing as a prophet. In this way 
they account for the fact, that he was not con- 
sulted in connection with the new Law-book 
discovered in B. C. 621, and for the further 
fact, that for a number of years subsequently, 
from B. C. 621 to 608, we apparently have no 
prophecies from him. He was, it is thought, 
discredited in the eyes of others and struck 
dumb by the contradiction which his preaching 
had received. But it is very doubtful if this 
was the case. It is quite possible to account for 
his long silence, and also for his failure to be 
consulted with reference to the newly found 
book of the Law on other grounds. At the time 
the book of the law was found he may have 
been absent from the city, and hence the proph- 
etess Hulda was consulted instead. Then, again, 
he may have looked upon the Deuteronomic re- 
form as temporarily at least averting the doom 

175 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

he had pronounced upon the nation, and hence 
may have waited in silence through the rest of 
Josiah's reign to see what its actual effect upon 
the people would be. Or it may be that after 
the Scythian storm had blown over, a period 
of comparative quiet set in, which gave the 
prophet no occasion for any special message of 
alarm. In any case, we find that after the death 
of Josiah he resumed his prophetic activity, and 
in B. C. 604 reproduced and published his ear- 
lier Scythian discourses without any apparent 
feeling that they had been contradicted by the 
course of events. Indeed, the very fact of their 
publication at this later date implies the direct 
contrary. Evidently, Jeremiah distinguished 
between the incidental and the essential elements 
in his message. His original prophecy of doom 
had not been fulfilled by the Scythians, as he 
had expected. But this was a minor matter. 
There was an essential truth in the prophecy, 
and now, he says in B. C. 604, it will be ful- 
filled by the Babylonians. It is hardly probable, 
then, that the failure of the Scythians to overrun 
the land of Judah affected at all seriously either 
Jeremiah himself or his prophetic standing. 

Jeremiah's relation, however, to the Deu- 
teronomic reform, which was the great out- 
standing event of Josiah's reign, calls for fur- 
ther consideration. On this point there is wide 
176 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PlETY 

diversity of opinion among scholars. Some take 
their cue from Jer. ii. 1-14, and hold that Jere- 
miah not only did not oppose but actively sup- 
ported the Deuteronomic program. Others find 
the key to the question in Jer. 8. 8, and conclude 
that he was hostile to the whole movement, at- 
tributing the new law to *'the false pen of the 
scribes" which "hath wrought falsely." But 
both of these views are extreme. It is incredi- 
ble that Jeremiah should have characterized the 
Deuteronomic law as "false." Jer. 8. 8 must 
refer to some scribal expansion or perversion 
of the law. For with a large part of Deuteron- 
omy Jeremiah was manifestly in accord. He 
could not help but sympathize with its passion- 
ate devotion to Jehovah and its tender regard 
for the poor and the needy. In two instances 
also he seems to refer approvingly to its regula- 
tions (11. iff.; 34. I3ff.). Then, too, he could 
hardly have spoken in such warm terms of ap- 
preciation of Josiah (22. 15, 16), if he had 
regarded the king's most important administra- 
tive act as due to the "false pen of the scribes." 
On the other hand, it is highly improbable 
that Jeremiah ever gave to the Deuteronomic 
law his unqualified approval. There was much 
that was good in it, and this he indorsed; but 
no legislative reform could meet the demands 
of the situation. What was needed was a rad- 
177 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

ical change of heart (4. 3, 4). Nothing short 
of this could avert the impending doom. In 
Deuteronomy there is also a stress on ritual 
which seems hardly in harmony with the teach- 
ing of Jeremiah. He took the same attitude 
toward the cultus as his great predecessors of 
the eighth century. ''To what purpose," he 
says, as the spokesman of Jehovah, ''cometh 
there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the 
sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt 
offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices 
pleasing unto me" (6. 20). And again: ''Add 
your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and 
eat ye flesh ! For I spake not unto your fathers, 
nor commanded them in the day that I brought 
them out of the land of Egypt, concerning 
burnt offerings or sacrifices" (7. 2if. ). Such 
statements as these manifestly represent a dif- 
ferent standpoint from that of Deuteronomy. 
Furthermore, it soon became clear that the Deu- 
teronomic centralization of worship, desirable 
as it no doubt was from some points of view, 
carried with it its own peril. It gradually led to 
a superstitious trust in the temple. In hours of 
danger the people would crowd into its courts, 
crying, "The temple of Jehovah, the temple of 
Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, are these" 
(7. 4), as though Jehovah must needs protect 
those in his temple regardless of their character. 

178 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

They made, said the prophet, of the house of 
Jehovah a den of robbers, to which they would 
flee for safety whenever their own sins brought 
them into danger ( 7. 1 1 ) . In view of such ten- 
dencies to externahsm in the Deuteronomic re- 
form, it is not hkely that Jeremiah was ever 
fully satisfied with it. ''It was good in its way," 
as A. B. Davidson says, "but it was not the 
good which he and men like him desired to see 
and required." Some scholars consequently re- 
gard Jer. II. i-i4asa later addition to the book, 
and others think the prophet was here speaking, 
not of the Deuteronomic, but the Sinaitic cove- 
nant. The most probable view is that the pas- 
sage refers to Deuteronomy, but that it has been 
to some extent worked over by later hands so 
as to imply on the prophet's part a more com- 
plete indorsement of the Deuteronomic reform 
than was originally intended. 

The second period of Jeremiah's ministry be- 
gan with the death of Josiah and the accession 
of Jekoiakim. The latter was a very different 
type of man from his father. He lacked reli- 
gious interest and had no proper appreciation 
of the duties of a king. Whether or not his ex- 
ample was responsible for it, we have at the be- 
ginning of his reign a recrudescence of heathen- 
ism and immorality. It was apparently this 
fact, together with the new disturbances in the 
179 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

political world, that stirred the prophet again to 
action. First came the twice-reported temple- 
discourse (chapters 7 and 26), in which he pre- 
dicted that the temple would be destroyed like 
Shiloh of old. This prediction struck the priests 
and prophets as nothing short of blasphemous. 
They, therefore, brought capital charges against 
him. But some of the elders recalled that a 
similar prediction had been made by the prophet 
Micah a century earlier, and that he had been 
treated very differently by Hezekiah the king. 
Then, too, Jeremiah had the powerful support 
of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, so that he es- 
caped with his life. But how real the danger 
was is clear from the fact that a like-minded 
prophet, Uriah, was put to death by the king 
because he had delivered a similar message of 
doom against the city and the land (26. 20-23). 
This experience, however, did not intimidate 
Jeremiah. A year or two later — the exact date 
is not known — he repeated his offense by declar- 
ing again in the temple court that the city would 
be destroyed (19. i to 20. 6). This time he 
was scourged and put in the stocks over night 
by Pashhur, ''the chief officer in the house of 
Jehovah." Undismayed by such treatment, he 
boldly announced to Pashhur that he and his 
whole house would go into captivity. As a 
penalty probably for this act of defiance, he was 
180 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

denied the privilege of admission to the temple 
court (36. 5). He, therefore, resolutely deter- 
mined to reach the ear of the people by the 
written word. So in the fourth year of Jehoia- 
kim, he dictated to his scribe Baruch all the 
prophecies he had delivered up to that time, and 
commissioned him to read them to the people at 
the next public fast, when it might be supposed 
they would be in a serious frame of mind (chap- 
ter 36). This event awakened great interest. 
Baruch was required to read the prophecies a 
second time before a company of princes, and 
then the roll was taken to the king. He cut it up, 
three or four columns at a time, as it was read 
to him and threw it into the fire; after which 
he ordered the arrest of Jeremiah and Baruch. 
"But Jehovah," we read, "hid them" (36. 26). 
A new copy of the prophecies was then pre- 
pared, containing not only all the words in the 
previous roll but also in addition "many like 
words," among them a terrible woe upon Jehoia- 
kim himself (22. 13-19). 

How long Jeremiah remained in concealment 
we do not know. Some think it was through all 
the rest of Jehoiakim's reign. It has even been 
suggested that he left the country and did not 
return until the king's death. But there is no- 
where any indication of this, and it is probable 
that after a while the king's wrath cooled off. 
181 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Anyhow, there are a number of incidents in the 
prophet's life which may naturally be referred 
to the latter part of Jehoiakim's reign, such as 
the plot against his life by his own townsmen 
(ii. 18-21), and the attempts to entrap him in 
his speech (18. iSf. ; 20. 10). 

The third period in the prophet's ministry 
covered the reign of Zedekiah (B. C. 597-586). 
The best part of the nation had now been car- 
ried into captivity. They were the good figs; 
those at home were the bad figs (chapter 24). 
Still, even among the captives in Babylon false 
hopes were entertained. Jeremiah consequently 
wrote them a letter, bidding them prepare for a 
long captivity (chapter 29). In Jerusalem, he 
steadily opposed the spirit of rebellion, counsel- 
ing submission to Babylon. This brought him 
in B. C. 594 into conflict with the false prophet 
Hananiah (chapters 2j, 28). Hananiah prophe- 
sied that in two years the yoke of Nebuchadrez- 
zar would be broken from ofif the neck of all 
the nations. This prophecy Jeremiah denounced 
as false, and, as a penalty for uttering it, declared 
that Hananiah would die within a year — a pre- 
diction that was fulfilled two months later. 
When the final rebellion came, in B. C. 587, 
Jeremiah's attitude toward it was still the same. 
Time and again he declared that the one way of 
safety was to submit to the Babylonian king 
182 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

(21. i-io; 38. 2, 18). If they failed to do this, 
certain destruction awaited the city (37. 3-10; 
38. 21-23). Such speech naturally awakened 
the hostility of the war party. As a result, Jere- 
miah was arrested on a false charge of desert- 
ing to the enemy and put into prison. Trans- 
ferred from the house of Jonathan, where he 
was first confined, to the court of the guard, he 
continued .his counsel of submission to the peo- 
ple who came to see him. This so angered the 
nobles that they thrust him into a slimy cistern, 
where he would soon have died had he not been 
rescued by Ebed-melek, the Ethiopian. Re- 
stored again to the court of the guard, he re- 
mained there till the capture of the city. After 
its fall he threw in his lot with Gedaliah, the 
son of Ahikam, and settled at the new capital, 
Mizpah, where he continued to live until the 
new governor was assassinated. After this, in 
spite of his opposition, he was carried into Egypt 
by his frightened countrymen. There he re- 
newed his denunciation of them for their idol- 
atry, and finally, tradition says, met his death 
at their hands. So to the end he remained, 
against his will, a man of strife. 

With this survey of the life and times of Jere- 
miah in mind, we pass now to a more intimate 
and more systematic study of his teaching. 
183 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

The book of Jeremiah is the longest of the 
prophetic books and one of the most poorly ar- 
ranged. It is also the only one that gives an 
account of its origin. In chapter 36, as we have 
already seen, we are told how Jeremiah in the 
twenty-second year of his ministry dictated to 
Baruch all the prophecies he had delivered up 
to that time. This roll was destroyed by the 
king the next year, and then another was pre- 
pared containing in addition "many like words." 
At subsequent times other additions were no 
doubt made by the prophet (30. i, 2), so that 
the book grew up without any definite plan. 
The later scribes rearranged the material and 
added not a little from Baruch's memoirs and 
other sources. As at present arranged, the book 
may be divided into four unequal divisions. 
Chapters i to 25 contain prophetic discourses 
chiefly in the first person. Chapters 26 to 45 
are made up for the most part of the remi- 
niscences of Baruch. Chapters 46 to 51 are a 
group of oracles against the heathen, and chap- 
ter 52 is an historical appendix taken largely 
from Second Kings. There is considerable dif- 
ference of opinion as to how extensive the later 
scribal additions to the book were. Of the ap- 
proximately one thousand three hundred and 
fifty verses, Duhm attributes only about two 
hundred and eighty to Jeremiah, two hundred 
184 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

and twenty to Baruch, and the remaining eight 
hundred and fifty to later editors. This, how- 
ever, is a very extreme view, and rests upon the 
unwarranted assumption that Jeremiah wrote 
only poetry, and poetry of one definite measure. 
Most scholars assign very much less to later 
hands. But that considerable additions to the 
book were made in later times is generally ad- 
mitted; and this fact must be borne in mind 
in any critical estimate of the prophet's teaching. 
As we read the book of Jeremiah, we are first 
of all impressed, as we were in our study of 
Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, with the prominence 
of the message of doom. Jeremiah's commis- 
sion at the outset was "to pluck up and to break 
down, to destroy and to overthrow" (i. lo). 
And to this commission he remained true 
throughout his whole ministry. Even after the 
predicted doom had fallen upon the nation, he 
continued his denunciation of the exiles in 
Egypt, as though he believed in a ki id of pun- 
ishment after death (chapter 44). It was, he 
declared, characteristic of the true prophet to 
prophesy "of war, and of evil, and of pesti- 
lence" (28. 8). By this he meant that true 
prophecy was moral in its character and must 
therefore manifest itself in the condemnation of 
a wicked people. Indeed, this very attitude 
toward Israel on the part of a prophet attested 
185 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

the truth of his message. It was only prophecies 
of peace to a sinful nation that required verifi- 
cation by the event (28. 9). 

At first it was the Scythians who were to 
bring destruction upon Judah, later the Babylo- 
nians. But Jeremiah did not reckon simply with 
historical forces. The real agent in the punish- 
ment of Judah was Jehovah, and it was possible 
for him to execute his will in a great variety of 
ways. In one of the most powerful passages of 
the whole book, Jeremiah represents the ap- 
proaching desolation as a return to the state of 
chaos : 

I beheld the earth, and, lo, 

It was waste and void; 

And the heavens, and they had no light. 

I beheld the mountains, and, lo, 

They trembled. 

And all the hills moved to and fro. 

I beheld, and, lo. 

There was no man. 

And all the birds of the heaven were fled. 

I beheld, and, lo. 

The fruitful field was a wilderness, 

And all the cities were broken down at the presence of 
Jehovah (4. 23-26). 

In another brief but masterful poem he depicts 
the coming doom as due to pestilence. 
186 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

Death is come up into our windows, 
It is entered into our palaces ; 
To cut off the children from without, 
The young men from the streets. 

The corpses of men shall fall 
Upon the open field, 
As sheaves after the harvestman, 
And none shall gather them (9. 2if.). 

In another case he represents the people as sud- 
denly overtaken by a storm which enshrouds 
them in darkness. 

Give glory to Jehovah your God, 

Before he cause darkness, 

And before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, 

And, while ye look for light. 

He turn it into the shadow of death 

And make it gross darkness (13. 16). 

''Only a master of the first rank," says Duhm, 
''could select just this moment before the storm, 
and in two lines [in the Hebrew] perfectly de- 
pict it and then — ^stop." But these are only 
illustrations of the great variety of forms under 
which Jeremiah describes the approaching doom. 
The historical situation he has in mind is the 
destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of a for- 
eign foe. But attached to this idea, and supple- 
menting it, are many other ideas of doom, 
among them the conception, more or less definite, 
of an approaching world-judgment, a marvelous 
187 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

event or series of events, which is to inaugurate 
a new era in the history of the world (chapters 
25, and 46 to 51). 

The ground of Jeremiah's message of doom 
was essentially the same as that of the earlier 
prophets. Social and moral conditions had not 
changed much since the close of the eighth cen- 
tury. It happens that Jeremiah does not lay so 
much stress on the injustice and oppression of 
the rich as did Amos and Isaiah, nor does he 
dwell on the unchastity of the people the way 
Hosea did. But his condemnation of the general 
wickedness of his day is very similar to theirs. 
"The sin of Judah," he says, *'is written with a 
pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond 
it is graven upon the tablet of their heart" 
(17. i). The particular evil he emphasizes 
is that of deceit (5. iff.; 9. 2ff.). Per- 
haps his own transparent sincerity of soul 
made this sin especially offensive to him. Re- 
ligiously the Deuteronomic refomi effected a 
marked outward change. Before it was in- 
troduced, conditions seem to have been even 
worse than a century earlier. During the 
reactionary reign of Manasseh, new evils 
had grown up, such as the worship of the host 
of heaven; and old evils, such as human sacri- 
fice, had been revived (2. Kings 21. 6). This 
state of affairs is clearly reflected in the dis- 
188 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

courses from the earliest part of Jeremiah's min- 
istry (chapters 2 to 6). The current rehgious 
evils are there denounced in terms very similar 
to those found in Hosea. The reform of B. C. 
621 put an end to many of these evils. But in 
their stead there arose a new type of formalism, 
a superstitious trust in the temple (chapter 7), 
and also a self-confident nationalism disguising 
itself in the cloak of piety (chapter 28). The 
real inner attitude of the people, therefore, 
toward Jehovah was not seriously altered by the 
Deuteronomic reform, and after the death of 
Josiah some at least of the earlier heathen prac- 
tices were revived (7. 31 ; 13. 27). It is evident, 
then, that there was abundant ground for the 
prophet's message of doom. 

Hosea and Isaiah had traced the sin of Israel 
back to a deeper principle, Hosea finding it in 
disloyalty to Jehovah and Isaiah in unbelief. In 
Jeremiah it is not so much any one principle that 
is the source of sin as it is the heart itself. Man 
is not, according to Jeremiah, by nature sinful. 
He is made for God. What instinct is to the 
birds of passage that religion is to man (8. 7). 
It is the deepest impulse of his being. What 
Tertullian meant when he said that the human 
heart is naturally Christian was already clearly 
apprehended by Jeremiah. That Israel should 
forget Jehovah seemed to him a thing contrary 
189 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

to the order of nature (2. 32; 18. I4f.)- But 
while the native bent of the human mind is thus 
toward God, man is naturally weak and is easily 
led astray. As he persists in sin, he develops a 
love for it and cherishes it (5. 31; 14. 10). He 
does not generate evil out of his own nature as 
a well casts forth water, but he harbors it just 
as a cistern keeps fresh and cool the water that 
has come into it from without (6. 7). And so 
gradually his heart becomes diseased (17. 9). 
It takes on a stubbornness foreign to its original 
constitution (7. 24; 9. 14; 23. 17), until eventu- 
ally sin becomes a kind of second nature to man, 
which he can no more change than an Ethiopian 
can his skin or a leopard his spots (13. 2^). 

Such was the condition of the people of Israel 
as Jeremiah found them. If they were to meet 
the demands of Jehovah, they must manifestly 
undergo a radical change of character. Hence, 
the prophet says : *'Break up your fallow 
ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise 
yourselves to Jehovah, and take away the fore- 
skins of your heart" (4. 3, 4). This was not an 
act that lay within their own power. "I know," 
says the prophet, "that the way of man is not 
in himself; it is not in man that walketh to 
direct his steps" (10. 23). But the help of Je- 
hovah was always near. He stood in an espe- 
cially close relationship to the soul of man. In- 
190 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

deed, it was his peculiar function to try the heart 
and the mind (ii. 20; 17. 10; 20. 12). He 
was ever ready to heal the backslidings of his 
wayward children (3. 22'). The prophet, there- 
fore, in his eager desire for their conversion, 
could at times almost hear the penitent people 
on the bare heights, weeping and making sup- 
plication unto Jehovah, saying, ''Behold, we 
are come unto thee; for thou art Jehovah our 
God" (3. 2 if.). Even exiled Ephraim he could 
hear in spirit bemoaning himself as a prodigal 
and saying unto Jehovah: ''Turn thou me, 
and I shall be turned" (31. i8f.). But these 
ardent hopes were not destined to be realized by 
the prophet. The people refused the help of- 
fered. They would not take of the balm of 
Gilead (8. 22'). They persisted in their stub- 
bornness of heart, and so went down into ruin. 
In view of these facts it was inevitable that 
Jeremiah's message should be one mainly of 
doom. But it was by no means merely this. It 
had also its element of hope. At the beginning 
of his ministry the prophet had not only received 
the commission "to destroy and to overthrow," 
but also "to build and to plant." By his pro- 
found conception of sin and clear insight into 
the need of regeneration, which we have just 
been considering, he was, as a matter of fact, 
building and planting better than he knew. But 
191 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

it is not to building and planting of this kind 
that his commission refers. It refers to nations 
and kingdoms, and especially to the kingdom of 
Israel. The destruction of Jerusalem was far 
from being the last word of the prophet. 
Throughout his whole ministry he entertained 
the hope of the restoration of the exiled people. 
Now and then, as we have seen, he apparently 
cherished the idea that Judah would repent and 
escape exile altogether. But this was only a 
temporary expectation in which the wish was 
father to the thought. For him, as a rule, the 
exile of Judah was certain. But just as certain 
was her restoration from exile after a period of 
seventy years (25. 12; 29. 10). And not only 
was Judah to be restored, but also Ephraim 
(31. 4-6). An interesting practical expression 
of the prophet's faith in the future of the land 
was furnished while he was confined in the court 
of the guard during the siege of the city by the 
Babylonians (32. 6-15). A cousin came and 
asked him to buy a field in Anathoth, which was 
at that time probably occupied by the enemy. 
Jeremiah at once saw in this request an indica- 
tion of the gracious purpose of Jehovah, and so 
bought the field. 'Tor thus saith Jehovah of 
hosts, the God of Israel : Houses and fields and 
vineyards shall yet again be bought in this land" 

(32. 15). 

192 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

In his conception of the future, Jeremiah 
shared the common view of the prophets that 
there was to be a marvelous interposition of Je- 
hovah resulting in the establishment of a new 
order (chapters 30 to 33). But in his represen- 
tation of this new order, two new and significant 
elements are introduced. The first relates to the 
Davidic king. He is to bear the name, "J^^^vah 
our righteousness" (23. 5, 6). This means not 
only that he is to be a righteous king, but also 
that he is to be a moral and spiritual redeemer 
of his people. Through him Jehovah is to make 
his people righteous. We have here an antici- 
pation of the righteous servant of Isaiah 53, 
who is to *' justify many." The second new 
element is found in the conception of a new 
covenant between Jehovah and his people 
(31- 31-34)- "This is the covenant that I will 
make with the house of Israel after those days, 
saith Jehovah : I will put my law in their inward 
parts, and in their heart will I write it. . . . And 
they shall teach no more every man his neigh- 
bor, and every man his brother, saying, Know 
Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the 
least of them unto the greatest of them, saith 
Jehovah." This is one of the profoundest and 
most significant utterances in the whole Old 
Testament. It contains the quintessence of the 
whole theology of Jeremiah. Henceforth, in 
193 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

the new covenant, the law is to be inwardly and 
individually approp;-iated. Religion, in a word, 
is to be a matter of the heart. And if so, it can 
recognize no limits of race. It must be as broad 
as humanity itself. It is, then, no surprise to 
find Jeremiah representing the nations as com- 
ing from the ends of the earth and saying, ''Our 
fathers have inherited naught but lies, even van- 
ity and things wherein there is no profit. Shall 
a man make unto himself gods, which yet are no 
gods?" (i6. 19, 20). It is also no surprise to 
find him enunciating the doctrine of individual- 
ism, which is the correlate of universalism. In 
the better days to come, the children of Israel, 
he declares, will no more say, "The fathers have 
eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are 
set on edge. But every one shall die for his own 
iniquity: every man that eateth sour grapes, his 
teeth shall be set on edge" (31. 29f). These 
ideas, however, he did not himself elaborate 
and insist upon. The execution of this task he 
left to those who came after him. It is his 
distinction to occupy the middle point in the his- 
tory of prophecy. The great truths of reli- 
gion, uttered by Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, 
came to a focus in him by being made inward 
and personal. He then, in turn, by his con- 
ception of the inwardness of religion, became 
the starting point of a new development, lead- 
194 



I 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

ing to the individualism of Ezekiel and the 
universalism of Deutero-Isaiah. 

But the most interesting aspect of Jeremiah's 
teaching remains yet to be considered. This 
is found in the revelations he has given us of 
his own feelings and inward experiences. The 
message of doom, which he was commissioned 
to deliver, was by no means one that gave him 
any pleasure. At times he seems to have been 
completely overwhelmed by it. Especially was 
this true in the earlier part of his ministry. He 
cries out, for instance, in 4. 19-21 : 

My anguish, my anguish ! 

I am pained at my very heart; 

My heart is tumultuous within me, 

I cannot hold my peace; 

Because my soul hath heard the sound of the trumpet, 

The alarm of war. 

Destruction succeeds destruction, 
For the whole land is laid waste: 
Suddenly are my tents destroyed, 
And my curtains in a moment. 
How long shall I see the standard, 
And hear the voice of the trumpet? 

And again in 8. 18 and 9. i : 

Incurable is my sorrow, 

My heart is faint within me. . . . 

Oh that my head were waters, 

And mine eyes a fountain of tears, 

That I might weep day and night 

For the slain of the daughter of my people. 

195 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

But not only did his message of doom cause 
his own soul intense sorrow. It awakened oppo- 
sition on the part of his fellow men generally, 
and estranged them from him. This added new 
bitterness to his experience, for he was himself 
by nature social. He loved the society of others. 
He looked with pleasure upon the natural joys 
of life. The children in the street and the young 
men in the market place were to him special 
objects of sympathy and interest (6. ii; 9. 21). 
Time and again he speaks of ''the voice of mirth 
and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bride- 
groom and the voice of the bride" (7. 34; 16. 9; 
25. 10; 33. 11). But, however much his own 
nature was drawn toward these joyful aspects 
of life, he was not permitted to share in them. 
*T sat not," he says to Jehovah, "in the assem- 
bly of them that make merry, nor rejoiced; I 
sat alone because of thy hand; for thou hast 
filled me with indignation" (15. 17). It was 
probably for the same reason also that he was 
denied the comforts of a home (16. 2). Con- 
sequently, he felt himself cut off from his fel- 
low men, condemned to isolation. 

But not only did men treat him with coldness. 
They were openly hostile to him and sought to 
accomplish his ruin. Some of the more serious 
experiences that came to him, as a result of this 
hostility, have already been spoken of. Here we 
T96 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

need mention only the efforts to entrap him in 
his speech (i8. i8f. ; 20. 10), and the general 
persecution and reproach that he suffered 
(20. yi.', 15. 15). Apart altogether from the 
danger involved in the hostile attitude of the 
people about him, it was almost intolerable to a 
man of his sensitive nature to live in such an 
unfriendly atmosphere. Some one has said that 
observation without sympathy is torture. And 
so it was with Jeremiah. He felt that he was 
under the constant surveillance of hostile eyes, 
and this caused him the keenest distress. Then, 
too, he was by nature a man of peace (4. 10; 
6. 14; 8. 11; 14. 13; 23. 17; 29. 7). Strife ran 
contrary to the grain of his being. Because of 
this it was a perpetual source of pain to him to 
be involved in conflict with those about him. 
Now and then he seems to have been able to 
rise above his troubles and take them less seri- 
ously. For instance, he says, on one occasion, 
with a trace of humor : "I have not lent, neither 
have men lent to me; yet every one of them doth 
curse me" (15. 10). But, as a rule, his own 
sufferings weighed heavily upon him. "Woe is 
me, my mother," he cries, "that thou hast borne 
me a man of strife and a man of contention to 
the whole earth" (15. 10). And at another time, 
he goes so far as to curse the day he was born 
(20. 14-18). "Wherefore," he says, "came I 
197 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, 
that my days should be consumed with shame?" 
In estimating such an utterance as this, it is to 
be borne in mind that Jeremiah did not have the 
hope of a life hereafter to comfort him, nor did 
he have the consolation of the belief that his 
own suffering might be vicarious in character, 
a blessing to others. His misery was simply a 
blind, dumb fact. 

It was, furthermore, aggravated by two con- 
siderations. First, the prophet had interceded 
for the people with Jehovah, had striven to turn 
away his wrath from them (i8. 20), and now 
they reward him by plotting against him and 
persecuting him. This was so manifestly unjust 
that it rankled in his soul and led him to cry out 
for vengeance upon his enemies (15. 15). Sec- 
ondly, he had been called to the prophetic office 
by Jehovah, and hence felt that he had a right 
to expect his protection; but instead he was 
exposed to constant reproach and peril of life. 
Indeed, the more faithfully he performed his 
duties as a prophet, the greater was the danger 
and suffering he incurred. It seemed to him, 
therefore, at times, as though not only men but 
God himself had conspired against him. 

Under these circumstances, it naturally oc- 
curred to him that relief might be secured by 
ceasing to prophesy. But "if I say, I will not 
198 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

make mention of him, nor speak any more in 
his name, then there is in my heart as it were a 
burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am 
weary with forbearing, and cannot contain" 
(20. 9). So, with persecution from without, a 
burning fire within, and an apparently unsympa- 
thetic God above, he was jostled hither and 
thither until, in desperation, he cried out: "O 
Jehovah, thou hast enticed me, and I was en- 
ticed ; thou art stronger than I, and hast coerced 
me. . . . Why is my pain perpetual, and my 
wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? 
wilt thou in deed be unto me as a deceitful brook, 
as waters that fail?" (20. 7; 15. 18). Such an 
outcry was natural enough under the circum- 
stances, but it was far from what one would 
expect from a prophet of the Most High. And 
so Jehovah turns to him and says: "If thou 
wilt return, then will I restore thee, that thou 
mayest stand before me; and if thou bring forth 
the precious without the vile, thou mayest be as 
my mouth" (15. 19). 

This is one of the most remarkable utterances 
in the whole book. Nowhere else do we get 
such an insight into the heart of Jeremiah and 
into the essence of his teaching as here. Jeho- 
vah, it is to be observed, in his response to the 
prophet says nothing about his sufferings. He 
has no word of sympathy for him in his trials. 
199 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

These, he assumes, are to be met and manfully 
borne. On the other hand, he regards the 
prophet's complaints as equivalent to apostasy. 
By uttering them he has backslidden. So Jeho- 
vah here offers him the privilege of restoration 
to his prophetic office. The condition of this 
restoration is simply this, that he bring forth 
the precious without the vile. The vile was the 
prophet's complaining, with all that it implied ; 
the precious was his sense of fellowship with 
God, with all that it involved. We have in this 
utterance of Jehovah the prophet's higher na- 
ture asserting itself. In his best moments he 
realized that there was nothing in life that could 
compare with fellowship with God. Whatever 
suffering it might incidentally entail, it was still 
the chief good of life. It was not always possi- 
ble for him to keep himself up to this high pitch. 
The lower part of his nature not infrequently 
broke out in rebellion against what seemed his 
unjust lot. But in such hours, realizing his 
need, he turned his face upward and said : "Heal 
me, O Jehovah, and I shall be healed; save me, 
and I shall be saved : for . . . thou art my refuge 
in the day of evil" (17. 14, 17). And so 
through prayer he found rest unto his soul 
(6. 16), and entered into peace, that peace which 
the world could not give. 

In this experience of the prophet and in his 
200 



THE PROPHET OF PERSONAL PIETY 

conception of the new covenant, we have the high 
point of Old Testament prophecy. Nowhere 
else do we have so close an approach to the New 
Testament standard. For this reason it is not 
surprising that when, six centuries later, Jesus 
asked whom the people thought him to be, he 
was told that some said he was Jeremiah (Matt. 
1 6. 14) ; and also not surprising that when at 
the Last Supper he took the cup and passed it 
to his disciples, he borrowed a term from Jere- 
miah and called it "the new covenant" in his 
blood (Luke 22. 20). 



201 



CHAPTER VI 

EZEKIEL THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

As we pass from the book of Jeremiah to that 
of Ezekiel we are aware of a marked change. 
We are still in the realm of prophetic thought, 
but it is no longer prophetic thought in its purity. 
A new element entered into the work of Eze- 
kiel. He was priest as well as prophet. Not 
only was he the son of a priest, as was Jeremiah, 
but by training and native endowment he had 
the tastes and interests of a priest (4. 14). In 
his book, therefore, we find no such polemic 
against ceremonialism as in the other prophets 
whom we have studied. He places ritual of- 
fenses alongside of the moral (22. 6-16), and 
in the concluding chapters of the book (40 to 
48) gives elaborate instructions with reference 
to the construction of the temple and the exter- 
nals of religion. In taking this attitude toward 
rites and ceremonies, Ezekiel was following out 
a line of development already begun by Deu- 
teronomy. It was his conviction, as it was that 
of the authors of Deuteronomy, that the best 
way to promote the interests of true religion 
202 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

was not to repudiate the sacrificial cult alto- 
gether, but to moralize it and make it a medium 
for the expression of religious truth. And in 
this conviction he was justified by the course of 
history. His own sketch of priestly law stimu- 
lated other like endeavors, until eventually an 
elaborate ritual code was introduced by Ezra 
and Nehemiah and made the law of the land. 
It is, then, proper to speak of him as "the father 
of Judaism." 

In this aspect of Ezekiel's work it has been 
customary to see a decline from the heights of 
earlier prophetic teaching. And in the abstract 
this is no doubt true. Ritual, in and of itself, is 
no necessary part of genuine religion. On the 
contrary, it frequently carries with it much that 
is materialistic and unspiritual. But over against 
this, it should be borne in mind that there are 
many nonessential things in religion that are 
essential in order to make religion efiFective in 
the world. These nonessentials vary from age 
to age. But they exist in every age. And it is 
an evidence of true religious statesmanship to 
be able to single them out and make them the 
efficient means of religious culture. This power 
and insight Ezekiel possessed; and it was be- 
cause he possessed it, and because his work was 
carried on by other men, such as Ezra and Nehe- 
miah, that Old Testament religion was made 
203 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

strong enough to resist the encroachments of 
Greek naturalism. 

In the course of its histor}^ the religion of 
Israel was forced to face two great crises. The 
first was caused by the fall of Jerusalem in B. C. 
586. This disaster threatened the popular faith 
in the power of Jehovah. Whenever any other 
ancient nation fell, the people, as Isaiah says, 
threw their gods to the moles and the bats, 
thinking they had been conquered by superior 
deities. And this would have taken place in 
Israel also, had it not been for the work of the 
prophets. These inspired men, before the fall 
of the nation, moralized and universalized the 
conception of Jehovah. They declared it was he, 
and not his enemies, who was about to destroy 
the city. There was nothing, then, in the fall 
of Jerusalem that needed to weaken faith in 
him ; rather did this event furnish new ground 
for trust in him. Thus the spiritually minded 
in Israel reasoned, and in this way it came 
about that the Israelitic religion survived its own 
nation's downfall — the only instance of the 
kind in the history of the world. The sec- 
ond crisis above referred to was brought 
about by the disintegrating influence of Greek 
culture. After the conquests of Alexander the 
spread of Hellenism threatened to dissolve away 
everything that was cliaracteristic of Hebrew be- 
204 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

lief. Every other religion in southwestern Asia 
succumbed to Greek naturalism; and this would 
in all probability have been the fate of Judaism 
had it not been for the impenetrable armor of 
legalism in which Ezekiel and Ezra had encased 
it. What saved Israelitic religion from falling a 
prey to Greek thought and arms was the fact 
that it had been crystallized into law by the 
priests, and so had been rendered "hard as steel 
and strong as iron." It was, then, a service of 
the utmost importance to biblical religion that 
Ezekiel performed when, toward the close of his 
life (40. i), he worked out a new priestly con- 
stitution for restored Israel. 

But it is not the priestly side of Ezekiel's 
activity in which we are at present primarily in- 
terested. Our special subject of study is his 
work as a prophet. And here what above all 
else distinguishes him from the rest of the 
prophets is his doctrine of individualism. We 
have already seen that Jeremiah made religion a 
personal matter, an affair of the soul. We have 
also seen that his own personal experiences as a 
prophet constituted for him a problem. He 
raised the question as to why the wicked pros- 
per (12. i), and struggled with God in an effort 
to harmonize the sufferings and persecution to 
which he was subject with his own lofty calling. 
But he did not take up the general problem of 
205 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

individualism. It lay very near to his circle of 
ideas to do so, but the conditions under which 
his ministry was carried on led him to pass it 
by. It was Ezekiel who first asserted the rights 
of the individual. In so doing he did not give 
up the old message of national doom. He re- 
affirmed it again and again down to the very 
fall of Jerusalem. But in the impending doom 
he insisted that every individual would be judged 
by his own moral condition. No person would 
be punished for the sins of his father or for 
the sins of his son. Everyone would stand on 
his own merits, and on his own merits at the 
time when the doom came. This doctrine man- 
ifestly marked an important step forward in re- 
ligious thought. It meant an increased morali- 
zation of religion. It meant an increased sense 
of personal responsibility. It meant that here- 
after the individual would gradually supplant 
the nation as the unit of value in religion. This 
line of development was in some regards even 
more important than that of the law. Ezekiel, 
therefore, in his double capacity as prophet and 
priest occupies a very significant place in the 
history of Old Testament religion. H. P. Smith 
hardly overshoots the mark when he says that, 
"taking him all in all," he is "the most influen- 
tial man that we find in the whole course of He- 
brew history." 

206 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

Of the life of Ezekiel we know comparatively 
little. His father was a priest. He himself was 
carried into captivity along with Jehoiachin in 
B. C. 597. He settled at Tel-abib, on the banks 
of the river Chebar, probably a canal connecting 
Babylon with Nippur. He was married 
(24. 18), and occupied his own house (3. 24; 
12. 3), where he seems to have been frequently 
visited by the elders (8. i; 14. i; 20. i). His 
wife died suddenly shortly before the fall of Je- 
rusalem, and her death was used as a symbol to 
enforce the prophet's message of doom. He 
himself did not on this occasion observe the 
usual mourning customs, and this abstention on 
his part was declared to be a sign of the stupe- 
faction which would overtake the people when 
they heard of the capture of their sacred city 
(24. 15-24). The fall of Jerusalem wrought a 
sudden change in the content of the prophet's 
message. Previously it had been predominantly 
one of doom; hereafter it became almost exclu- 
sively one of consolation. How long this latter 
part of his ministry continued we do not know. 
The last date mentioned in his book is B. C. 
570, and it is not improbable that he died shortly 
thereafter. 

Ezekiel's call to the prophetic office came in 
the fifth year of his captivity (B. C. 592). It 
took with him, as with the prophets generally, 
207 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

the form of a vision. This vision is described 
at length in chapters i to 3. In reading these 
chapters wq are impressed with the contrast 
which they present to the account of Isaiah's 
call (chapter 6). Isaiah, with a few strokes, 
sets the whole scene before us. Ezekiel, on the 
other hand, goes into elaborate detail, describing 
the minutest features of the vision. This lit- 
erary method meets us not only here, but in va- 
rious parts of the book. It reappears in the 
vision of chapters 8 to 11. It is found in the 
allegory of the foundling child who became the 
faithless wife of her benefactor (chapter 16), 
and in the story of the two adulterous women, 
Oholah and Oholibah (chapter 2^). It is also 
illustrated in the vision of the restored temple 
(chapters 40 to 43). Indeed, it is characteris- 
tic of Ezekiel's type of mind. He has a won- 
derful capacity for grand and impressive con- 
ceptions (compare 27; 32. 17-32; 37), but this 
is coupled with a singular interest in mathe- 
matical calculation and minuteness of detail. 
Some minds see in this combination evidence of 
remarkable mental ability. To an extraordinary 
degree it exhibits, they think, sustained power 
of imagination and clearness and steadiness of 
vision. Victor Hugo, for instance, places Eze- 
kiel along with Homer and Aeschylus in the 
"avenue of the immovable giants of the human 
208 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

mind." But this is a judgment in which most 
people would find it difficult to concur. The 
average person has the feeling that Ezekiel's 
habit of detailed elaboration interferes with the 
impressiveness of his thought. It complicates 
his images so that the general conceptions that 
lie back of them are often lost from view. Such 
is the case, to some extent at least, with his in- 
augural vision. The result is that people, as a 
rule, find the simplicity of Isaiah 6 far more im- 
pressive than the complex elaboration of Eze- 
kiel I. 

The underlying idea of Ezekiel's vision is 
essentially the same as that of Isaiah's. And 
the general outline of his imagery is a not un- 
worthy embodiment of his thought. Jehovah 
is represented as coming in a stormcloud out of 
the north, borne by a wonderful chariot, which, 
by virtue of the power of the spirit in its wheels 
and living creatures, moves hither and thither, 
upward and downward. Above the heads of 
the living creatures is a crystal dome; on the 
dome is a throne with Jehovah in shining human 
form seated upon it ; and round about the throne 
is a brightness like that of the rainbow. What 
is suggested by this imagery is the greatness of 
God. He sits upon the throne of the universe; 
he rules everything. He moves upon the wings 
of the wind ; he is everywhere present. The 
209 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

rims of his chariot wheels are full of eyes 
(i. i8) ; they see everything; and so nothing 
escapes his all-seeing eye. No wonder that the 
prophet, as he beheld this wonderful theophany 
with all its symbolic significance, fell upon his 
face (i. 28). And no wonder that the Spirit 
must first enter into him before he could again 
stand upon his feet (2. 2). In the presence of 
this august manifestation he was himself simply 
a "son of man." This term of address is used 
one hundred and sixteen times in the book of 
Ezekiel, and always by Jehovah. It expresses 
the weakness and humility of the prophet as over 
against God. 

In Ezekiel's thought the one great fact of the 
universe was God. Everything existed for him 
and through him. In the impending doom of 
Israel and in the approaching overthrow of the 
nations of the world, he was the one being that 
was to abide. Indeed, the whole course of hu- 
man history was being so conducted that men 
would come to "know that I am Jehovah," the 
One who is and who persists (compare Exod. 
3. 13-15). This expression occurs no less than 
fifty-six times in the book of Ezekiel, and forms 
the unifying principle of the prophet's whole 
conception of history. Everything is done out 
of regard for Jehovah's holy name. His name 
may not be profaned. It was because Israel 
210 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

had profaned it by her sins that she was carried 
into captivity, and it was because the heathen 
nations profaned it by attributing the exile of 
Israel to the weakness of Jehovah that she was 
to be restored (36. i6ff.). The fate likewise of 
the heathen peoples was to be determined by 
their attitude toward Jehovah and his people 
(chapters 25 to 32). His sovereign will was 
the one controlling factor in human history. 
Everything that raised itself in pride against 
him was to be crushed to the earth (28. 2ff. ; 
29. 3). This idea had already been expressed 
by Isaiah (2. loff.), but in Ezekiel it received 
a more absolute and complete expression. His 
whole teaching was dominated by it. His 
thought was theocentric throughout. 

This idea of the absolute sovereignty of God 
naturally imposed upon the prophet himself the 
obligation of complete submission to the divine 
will. We find, therefore, with him no such 
struggles with God, no such complaints against 
his environment, as in the life of Jeremiah. In 
only one instance does he distinctly shrink from 
obeying a divine command (4. 14) ; and this is 
in a symbolical action which was probably not 
intended to be literally carried out. It may also 
be added that the command in this case was mod- 
ified so as to be less offensive to the prophet's 
nature. Obedience to the divine will had ap- 
211 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

parently been so completely legislated into his 
being that to receive a command from God was 
at once to perfoi-m it. That Jehovah might ever 
be mistaken or that he might ever be unjust in 
his dealings with men (i8. 25, 29) was a thought 
he could not entertain. In all his relations with 
men, in all his judgments on Israel, Jehovah 
had been abundantly justified. This unwaver- 
ing conviction on Ezekiel's part may account to 
some degree for the apparent hardness and cold- 
ness of his own nature. In temperament, it is 
true, he resembled Amos and Isaiah rather than 
Hosea and Jeremiah. He was stern and severe, 
strong and resolute. But the severity which 
manifests itself in his book was more than tem- 
peramental. It was, in part at least, the out- 
come of a theological conviction, a theodicy. 
The destruction of Jerusalem had been ordered 
by Jehovah. His word was not to be gainsaid. 
There was, then, no reason to lament the ap- 
proaching doom. Once or twice, it is true, the 
prophet cries out against its apparent severity 
(9. 8; II. 13). But, as a rule, he has no word 
of sympathy for the doomed city. He even ex- 
ults over its fall (6. it). The roll written on 
both sides with "lamentations and mourning and 
woe" was in his mouth "as honey for sweet- 
ness" (3. 3). Such an attitude, however, on his 
part toward his own people was not natural to 
212 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

him, was not simply the outgrowth of his tem- 
perament. He had a more tender side to his na- 
ture. This is clear from his relation to the 
individual Israelites (i8. 23, 3 if.; 33. 11), and 
also from his later words of hope to the exiled 
people (chapters 34 to 37). What caused him 
to be so unrelenting in his earlier messages of 
doom was the divine command. Jehovah's word 
had made his forehead "as an adamant harder 
than flint" (3. 9). 

The commission which Ezekiel received in his 
inaugural vision did not differ essentially from 
that of the earHer prophets (2. 1-7; 3. 4-11). 
His message, like theirs, was to be a message to 
the nation ; it was also to be a message of doom ; 
like those before him, he was to meet with oppo- 
sition ; and the people, as of old, would be unre- 
sponsive, more so even than those of a foreign 
tongue. The new element in his commission was 
his field of labor. He was to address himself 
to the exiles. All the prophets before his time 
had lived and labored in the land of Is- 
rael. He was the first to be called to ex- 
ercise the prophetic office among "them of 
the captivity." This fact necessarily influenced, 
to no small extent, his ministry. His mes- 
sage of doom had, it is true, a certain signifi- 
cance for the exiles. It meant that they must 
give up their hope of a speedy return to their 
213 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

native land. It meant also the end of their old 
religious nationalism. But it did not and could 
not have for them the same significance that it 
had for the residents of Judah. In the very na- 
ture of the case, the fall of Jerusalem could not 
involve them in any such danger as it did the 
people in the homeland. However patriotic, 
then, the exiles may have been, they must have 
felt themselves more or less detached from the 
fate of their sacred city. Its destruction must 
have presented itself to their minds as a more 
or less objective event, one that they could view 
at a distance and in which they were not them- 
selves immediately implicated. Hence, we 
should expect a prophet among them to be more 
reflective than one living at this time in Jerusa- 
lem. We should also expect him to devote more 
attention to the problems of the individual. The 
conditions of life in a foreign land must, it would 
seem, make this inevitable. And so it turned 
out in Ezekiel's case. In 3. 16-21 we have what 
looks like an appendix to his call, in which he is 
commissioned to be a watchman with the care of 
individual souls. Whether this belonged to his 
original commission is a question that cannot 
easily be decided. Perhaps it may have been 
added later by the prophet himself. In any case, 
it formed a new and important element in his 
ministry. 

214 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

Visions played a more important part in the 
life of Ezekiel than in that of any of the other 
prophets. In addition to his inaugural vision, 
we have two elaborate visions in chapters 8 to 
II and 40 to 48. In the former the prophet is 
carried to Jerusalem, where he sees the idola- 
tries in the temple, the slaughter of the wicked, 
and the withdrawal of Jehovah and his chariot 
from the ruined city. In the latter he receives 
instructions for the rebuilding of the temple and 
the government of the restored city which is 
henceforth to bear the name, "Jehovah is there." 
It hardly seems possible that all the details of 
chapters 40 to 48 could have been apprehended 
in an actual vision. It is probable, then, that the 
prophet expanded and elaborated the original 
content of his visions. Some, indeed, go so far 
as to regard his visions as a mere literary form. 
But this is out of harmony with the specific 
language employed. "The hand of Jehovah was 
upon me," an expression that occurs again and 
again (3. 14, 22; 8. i ; 37. i; 40. i), points to 
some extraordinary psychological experience. 
Furthermore, the general conception of inspira- 
tion in the book of Ezekiel, its immediate and 
extraordinary character, leads one naturally to 
look for a revelation through the medium of 
vision and audition. These experiences, it would 
seem, came upon the prophet suddenly, while 

215 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

the elders, for instance, were seated before him 
(8. I ; 14. I, 2; 20. I, 2). It may also be noted 
that two or three passages point apparently 
to his being endowed with telepathic powers 
(11. 13; 24. 2). From this it is clear that Eze- 
kiel was an ecstatic and had to an unusual degree 
the gift of clairvoyance. 

In recent years, however, it has been con- 
tended that Ezekiel was not only an ecstatic, as 
were the other prophets, but that he was afflicted 
with a deep-seated nervous disorder. In a word, 
he was a cataleptic, suffering at times from anes- 
thesia, hemiplegia, and aphasia — ailments which 
robbed him of the free use of his limbs and or- 
gans of speech. The passages on which this view 
is based are chiefly these: 3. 15; 24. 25-27; 
33. 21 f.; 3. 25, 26; and 4. 4-8. In 3. 15 the 
prophet speaks of himself as sitting among the 
captives at Tel-abib "overwhelmed" for seven 
days. This is supposed to be a case of anesthe- 
sia — a cataleptic numbness. But nothing in the 
text requires or even favors such an interpreta- 
tion. The same expression is used of Ezra 
(9. 3-4), and of the three friends of Job it is 
said that they sat silent before him seven days 
and seven nights (Job 2. 13). The cause in each 
of these cases was purely mental. Ezekiel was 
"overwhelmed" with the seriousness of the com- 
mission which he had just received. His expe- 
216 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

rience in this instance corresponds to Jesus's 
forty days in the wilderness. 

In 24. 25-27 and 33. 21, 22 we read of the 
opening of the prophet's mouth after a period 
during which he had been dumb. The beginning 
of this dumbness is usually found in 3. 25, 26, 
where Jehovah declares that he will cause the 
prophet's tongue to cleave to the roof of his 
mouth so that he will be dumb and will not be a 
reprover of the people. The ban here pro- 
nounced upon the prophet's public activity is no- 
where said to have been lifted until we reach 
chapter 24. Hence, it is concluded that from 
almost the beginning of his ministry down to 
the fall of Jerusalem Ezekiel was in some sense 
"dumb." And our pathologists tell us that this 
dumbness is to be understood in a physical sense 
as a case of aphasia. Chapters 4 to 24, however, 
make it impossible that the prophet should have 
been completely silent during this long period. 
Consequently, we are told that he was subject 
simply to occasional attacks of aphasia. During 
much of the time, he was able to carry on his 
regular prophetic activity. What, then, is meant 
by the opening of his mouth in 24. 27 and 33. 22 
is that after the fall of Jerusalem these attacks 
ceased altogether. But this whole theory of 
aphasia has no adequate basis in the text. The 
key to the passages just mentioned is to be found 
217 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

in 29. 21 and 16. 63, where "the opening of the 
mouth" is manifestly to be understood in a fig- 
urative sense. For some time before the fall of 
Jerusalem Ezekiel had been silenced by the unbe- 
lief of his auditors, who flatly denied the truth 
of his message of doom. After the capture of 
the city, however, he met with no such opposi- 
tion. His mouth was now opened. He could 
henceforth speak without fear of contradiction. 
The same view is also to be taken of 3. 25, 26. 
The dumbness there spoken of refers to a tempo- 
rary silence of the prophet caused by the opposi- 
tion of the people early in his ministry. How 
long this silence lasted we do not know. There 
is no connection between this passage and 
24. 25-27 and 33. 21, 22. 

In 4. 4-8 we are said to have a case of hemi- 
plegia. The prophet is here commanded to lie 
on his left side three hundred and ninety or, if 
we follow the Septuagint, one hundred and 
ninety days, and then on his right side forty 
days, as a sign of the length of the captivity of 
Israel and Judah. This, it is thought, would 
have been impossible unless he were in some sort 
of cataleptic state. But it is by no means certain 
that this emblem prophecy was intended to be lit- 
erally carried out. The probability is that it was 
not. But even if it was, it is difficult to under- 
stand how a cataleptic condition could be en- 
218 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

joined upon anyone for a certain definite period 
of time. One commentator has attempted to ac- 
count for it by the theory of auto-suggestion. 
But this would seem to be out of the question 
when one considers the length of time here speci- 
fied. And another commentator holds that we 
have here a later interpretation of an attack of 
hemiplegia, similar to Hosea's interpretation of 
his marriage. But this view finds no adequate 
support in the text and is in itself inherently im- 
probable. We conclude, therefore, that, however 
strange some of Ezekiel's symbols and actions 
may appear to us, they are not to be ascribed to 
any form of catalepsy. Even if he was afflicted 
with such a malady, his prophetic teaching 
w^ould not on that account be discredited. For 
every man's work must be judged by its fruits, 
not by its roots. Indeed, it might be regarded as 
all the more striking evidence of divine inspira- 
tion that a man so afflicted should have been 
responsible for the immortal utterances found in 
his book. But nothing in the text, as we have 
seen, requires such a view of him, and no real 
light is in this way thrown upon his remarkable 
personality. 

Another question raised with reference to 

Ezekiel is as to whether the symbolical actions 

in his books were actually performed or not. 

Besides the one just discussed (4. 4-8) there are 

219 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

eleven others. All of these except 37. 15-20, 
which announces the reunion and restoration of 
Judah and Joseph, have to do directly or indi- 
rectly with the fall of Jerusalem. In 21. 18-23 
Nebuchadrezzar is represented as approaching 
Jerusalem; in 4. 1-3 we have a mimic siege of 
the city; in 4. 10, 11, 16, 17, and 12. 17-20 are 
two symbols depicting the scarcity of food and 
the fear of the besieged people; 12. 1-7 sym- 
bolizes the flight of the king; 5. i-4a and 
24. I- 1 4 announce in different ways the complete 
destruction of the city; 21. 6, 7 and 24. 15-24 
tell of the dismay and stupefaction that will 
come upon the exiles when they receive the tid- 
ings of their city's fall; and in 4. 9a, 12-15 the 
eating of food prepared with loathsome fuel is 
made an emblem of the ceremonial pollution 
which the new captives will undergo when they 
are forced to eat unclean food in exile. 

In endeavoring to decide whether these dif- 
ferent emblem prophecies were literally carried 
out or not, it should first be observed that one 
of them is explicitly declared to have been a par- 
able (24. 3). It should also be noted that there 
is a symbolical action incorporated in one of the 
visions (2. 8 to 3. 3). Neither of these, of 
course, was actually performed. The same is 
also true of such symbols as are found in Jer. 
13. l-ii and 25. i5ff. It is clear, then, that sym- 
220 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

bolical actions were at times employed by the 
prophets as a mere Hterary form. But, on the 
other hand, there are unmistakable indications 
that they were not infrequently actually carried 
out (compare i Sam. ii. 7; 15. 2yi.', i Kings 
II. 2gE.; 22. 11; Isa. 20; Jer. 28; 2^2. 6-15). 
When, however, this was done by Ezekiel and 
when not, it is difficult to determine. He gives 
us no clear objective means of deciding the ques- 
tion, and in such cases as these it would mani- 
festly be unsafe to take our modern standard of 
taste as a test. For in matters of this kind, 
ancient Oriental taste may have differed widely 
from our own. Still, it is probable that the more 
simple and manifest of the symbols, such as 
21. 6, 7 and 24. 15-18 were literally per- 
formed, and that the more difficult ones, such as 
4. 4-8 and 5. I -4a, were not. In any case, there 
is no reason for supposing that Ezekiel's method 
in this regard differed materially from that of 
the other prophets. 

Another point of dispute concerning Ezekiel 
has to do with the general nature of his ministry. 
Was he primarily a preacher or a writer? Is 
his book the deposit of an active public minis- 
try, or was it, rather, a product of the study? 
The latter is the view commonly held. "His ser- 
mons," says Kent, "come from the study rather 
than the public forum and reflect the leisure and 
221 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Spirit of meditation which distinguished the exile 
from the strenuous years preceding." And 
Smend declares that the whole book is the "log- 
ical development of a series of thoughts on a 
carefully elaborated and schematic plan; nothing 
can be removed without disarranging the whole." 
In harmony with this latter statement, it is held 
that 3. 25 f. points forward to 24. 25-27, and 
that during the intervening period of six years 
Ezekiel did not speak in public, but sent out his 
prophecies in the form of written tracts, or sim- 
ply addressed himself to those who visited him 
in his home. Even such activity as this, how- 
ever, on his part would have violated the injunc- 
tion in 3. 26 that he was not to be a "reprover" 
of the people. The fact is, as we have already 
seen, that 3. 25 f. refers simply to a brief aban- 
donment of his public ministry and has no con- 
nection with 24. 25-27. It is a serious mistake 
to regard the book of Ezekiel as a logically ar- 
ticulated whole or as a literary unity. It is, rather, 
a collection of originally independent discourses. 
Some of these may never have been publicly de- 
livered. But nothing could be further from the 
truth than to say, as does Skinner, that "If the 
prophet had simply worked out his conceptions 
in the solitude of his chambers, the result would 
not have differed much from what we actually 
find." 

222 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

There are numerous indications that Ezekiel 
stood in an active relation with the people about 
him. At the outset of his ministry he was com- 
missioned to be a prophet to the exiles, to speak 
the words of Jehovah to them (2. 3; 3. 4, 11, 
15) ; and this is the position in which he is rep- 
resented throughout the book (11. 15). The 
elders come to see him (8. i ; 14. i ; 20. i), and 
the people gather to hear him (33. 30-33). Not 
infrequently he takes some popular saying as the 
starting point of his discourse (compare 11. 3; 
II. 15; 33. 24). He also alludes now and then 
to the mood of the exiles. They complain that 
they are suffering because of their fathers' sins 
(18. 2); they charge that Jehovah is not just 
and impartial in his dealings with men (18. 25) ; 
and after the fall of the city they cry out in 
despair that their bones are dried up and their 
hope gone (37. 11). Their attitude, likewise, 
toward himself and his message the prophet 
takes note of. At one time they declare that 
his prediction of doom will never be fulfilled 
(12. 22), and at another time that it relates only 
to the distant future, so that they need not con- 
cern themselves about it (12. 27). His words, 
they say, are merely "parables'' (20. 49), not to 
be taken seriously; and he is himself unto them 
not as a prophet with commanding authority, 
but "as a very lovely song of one that hath a 
223 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

pleasant voice, and can play well on an instru- 
ment" (33. 32). 

From such incidental references as these it is 
evident that Ezekiel stood in living contact with 
the people about him. But a more decisive con- 
sideration is found in the fact that the most dis- 
tinctive features of his message grew out of the 
needs of the exiles. In his justification of the 
doom of Jerusalem and Judah and in his doc- 
trine of individual retribution, he was not deal- 
ing with abstract problems. He was seeking to 
meet the actual questions of the exiles, seeking 
to save them from doubt and despair. It is only 
as we bear this in mind, only as we keep in view 
the concrete conditions under which he lived and 
labored, that we can properly understand the 
teaching of his book. Everything, then, points 
toward his having had an active ministry in the 
colony at Tel-abib. The symbol of the eating 
of the roll in 2. 8 to 3. 3 does not imply a "lit- 
erary conception of prophecy different from that 
of the preceding prophets," but simply empha- 
sizes the fact of the prophet's inspiration. He 
was delegated to bear the actual words of Jeho- 
vah to "them of the captivity." And what we 
have in his book is, for the most part, the de- 
posit of such a direct and active prophetic career. 

The book of Ezekiel may be divided into 
224 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

three parts. Chapters i to 24 deal chiefly with 
the doom of Jerusalem and Judah; chapters 25 
to 32 contain a number of prophecies against 
foreign nations; and chapters 33 to 48 are con- 
cerned mainly with the restoration of Israel. 
The middle section stands in close relation to the 
other two. It may be regarded either as an ap- 
pendix to the prophet's message of doom or as 
an introduction to his message of hope. The 
book therefore, as a whole, has two main 
themes — one doom, the other hope. We begin 
with the former. 

Since the time of Amos the central theme of 
the prophets has been the doom of Israel or 
Judah. This doom, as we have seen, was not 
viewed as an isolated event. It was projected 
against the background of a world judgment. 
And so it is also in Ezekiel (7. 2-4; 30. 7; 38 
and 39). It is from this point of view that his 
prophecies against foreign nations, as well as 
those of the other prophets, are best un- 
derstood. But Ezekiel's message of doom was 
delivered under different circumstances from 
those that attended the preaching of the earlier 
prophets. His auditors were already exiles. 
They hoped, it is true, for a speedy return to 
their native land, and hence were not disposed 
to receive with any favor the prophet's predic- 
tion of the fall of Jerusalem. But they were 
225 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

not themselves immediately involved in its fate. 
No physical peril threatened them. Further- 
more, they were not themselves directly respon- 
sible for the impending doom. They shared, to 
be sure, in the guilt of the nation, and even in 
their exile were not free from grievous sins 
(Ezek. 2. 5ff.; 3. 7ff.; 14. iff.; 20. iff.). But 
the immediate burden of the approaching fall of 
the city did not rest upon them. No change of 
conduct on their part could avert it. 

Ezekiel's motive, therefore, in his message of 
doom, must have differed to some extent from 
that of the earlier prophets. Aside from dispel- 
ling the vain hopes of the exiles, he must have 
also had the aim of preparing their minds for 
the inevitable catastrophe so that their religious 
faith would not be shaken by it. It is, ap- 
parently, for this reason that he dwells at such 
length upon the sins of the nation. He wishes 
to reconcile his hearers to the destruction of Je- 
rusalem by showing that it was abundantly de- 
served, that it was indeed required by the divine 
justice. 

The charges which he brings against Israel 
are practically the same as those found in the 
preceding prophets, though in some regards they 
are more severe. The people, and especially the 
princes, have been guilty of injustice and immo- 
rality (9. 9; II. 6; 22. 6-12, 27; 34). They have 
226 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

fallen into idolatry and all manner of heathen 
abominations (6. 1-14; 16. 1-43). Even the 
temple precinct itself was invaded by these idola- 
trous practices (8. 1-18). As nations also, the 
people of both kingdoms have proven themselves 
untrue to Jehovah by entering into alliances with 
foreign powers (chapter 2^). Their whole his- 
tory, indeed, has been one long apostasy. Not 
even at its beginning, as the previous prophets 
had taught, was there a bright spot. Both in 
Egypt and the wilderness, Israel was guilty of 
idolatry and disobedience to the divine will 
(20. 6-13; 23. 3). And not only has her whole 
history been characterized by heathenish tenden- 
cies, she herself is of heathen descent. Her 
father was an Amorite and her mother a Hit- 
tite (16. 3). This, of course, is to be understood 
in an ethical, not ethnical sense. Israel, in her 
moral and religious nature, did not differ from 
the early heathen inhabitants of Canaan. She 
was a thoroughly rebellious people (2. 3; 3. 9; 
12. 2). She had broken her covenant with Je- 
hovah (16. 59). She had persistently played the 
harlot (16; 23). 

In view of these facts it must have been clear 
to the most obtuse of the exiles that Jehovah was 
justified in the punishment he was about to mete 
out to Jerusalem. And not only justified ; his very 
holiness of nature required that a people who 
227 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

had so defiled the land should be driven away 
from it (36. 17-19). There was, accordingly, 
nothing in the fall of the nation that needed 
to disturb the true religious faith of the people. 
Jehovah was still God, and was working out his 
plans in the world. But while this was all true, 
the exile offered many grounds of discourage- 
ment. Some naturally reasoned that, if the na- 
tion was as wicked as the prophet had described 
and was deserving only of punishment, it was 
hardly worth while serving Jehovah any longer. 
Hence, they are represented as saying : "We will 
be as the nations, as the families of the countries, 
to serve wood and stone" (20. 32). Others felt 
that they were being unjustly punished for the 
sins of their fathers (18. 2) ; and others, again, 
in despair, cried out: "Our transgressions and 
our sins are upon us, and we pine away in them ; 
how, then, can we live?" (33. 10). "Our bones 
are dried up, and our hope is lost ; we are clean 
cut off" (37. 11). 

This state of discouragement seems to have 
become the prevailing mood of the exiles after 
the fall of Jerusalem. From this time on, there- 
fore, Ezekiel devoted himself almost exclusively 
to a ministry of hope. This element was not al- 
together lacking in his earlier discourses, if we 
may trust the present arrangement of the book 
(II. 14-21; 16. 53-63; 17. 22-24; 20. 32-44; 
228 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

21. 32). But after B. C 586 it became his regu- 
lar theme. We have in chapters 34 to 48 three 
different representations of the future. In chap- 
ters 34 to 37, together with the passages just 
cited from the earHer part of the book, we have 
the common prophetic conception of the restora- 
tion of Israel. Chapters 38 and 39, however, 
which may be regarded as a supplement to the 
preceding chapters, introduce us to a new view 
of the Messianic era. After Israel has been for 
some time restored to her native land she is to 
be attacked by the peoples of the north under the 
leadership of Gog, of the land of Magog. These 
peoples are to be overthrown with a terrible 
slaughter upon the mountains of Israel, after 
which the final and universal reign of peace is 
to be ushered in. The idea of an attack upon Is- 
rael by the nations of the world was not new. 
It formed a part of the traditional eschatology 
(38. 17; 39. 8). But Ezekiel, so far as we know, 
was the first to apply it to the distant future 
(38. 8, 16), after the Messianic era had already 
been introduced. This representation exercised 
an important influence on the development of 
apocalyptic. It also served a practical purpose 
in helping to keep alive faith in the ultimate tri- 
umph of the kingdom of God. No matter how 
discouraged and harassed the later Jews were, it 
was always possible for them to turn to these 
229 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

chapters in Ezekiel and find consolation in the 
thought that eventually all powers hostile to the 
people of God would certainly be overthrown. 

In chapters 40 to 48 we have a picture of the 
future from the priestly point of view. It is not 
a purified and restored nation, with a Davidic 
king at its head, to which Ezekiel here looks for- 
ward, but an ecclesiastical community, with an 
elaborate temple ritual and a prince whose chief 
function it is to provide for the temple service 
(46. I- 18). Many regard these chapters as the 
crown of the whole book and see in them a de- 
scription of the final state of the redeemed peo- 
ple. But the differences between them and chap- 
ters 34 to 37 are so great that this view is hardly 
tenable. It would, rather, seem that, when Eze- 
kiel, in B. C. 572, wrote chapters 40 to 48, he 
had, temporarily at least, relinquished his earlier 
prophetic ideal, and turned his attention to a 
more practical program for the restored commu- 
nity. There are traces in his earlier discourses 
of a tendency toward a priestly formulation of 
the requirements of Jehovah (18. 5-9; 22. 7-12), 
but here this tendency is worked out into a sys- 
tem of statutes and ordinances, a theocratic con- 
stitution. The importance of this program for 
the subsequent history of Israel has already been 
pointed out. It became the foundation of Ju- 
daism. 

230 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

We return, then, to chapters 34 to 37 and the 
related passages in the earher part of the book 
for Ezekiel's prophetic conception of the future. 
In its main outlines this conception does not dif- 
fer materially from that of the preceding 
prophets. Both Judah and Israel are to be re- 
stored (37. 15-28). Their restoration is to be 
like a resurrection from the dead (^y. 1-14). 
The spirit of God is to enter into them and they 
are to live. The land is also to be restored to its 
former productivity (36. 1-15). The moun- 
tains are to shoot forth their branches and 
yield their fruit. "Showers of blessing" are to 
fall upon the people. And they are to be "se- 
cure in their land." "They shall no more be a 
prey to the nations, neither shall the beasts of 
the earth devour them; but they shall dwell se- 
curely, and none shall make them afraid" 
(34. 28). But before this state of peace and 
plenty is attained, Israel must undergo a process 
of purification. The rebels and those that trans- 
gress against Jehovah must be purged out of her 
(20. 35-38; compare 5. 3, 4a), and the evil shep- 
herds of the past, "the fat and the strong," must 
be destroyed (34. 10, 16). When this is done 
Jehovah himself will shepherd his people. "I 
will seek," he says, "that which was lost, and 
will bring back again that which was driven 
away, and will bind up that which was broken, 
231 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

and will strengthen that which was sick" 
(34. 16). But he will not do this alone without 
a visible representative. '*I will," he says, "set 
up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed 
them, even my servant David" (34. 23). Under 
this new ruler Judah and Israel will be reunited. 
*'One king shall be king over them all ; and they 
shall be no more two nations, neither shall they 
be divided into two kingdoms any more" 
(37. 22) ; but together they shall dwell in the 
land, and ''David my servant shall be their prince 
forever." "My tabernacle also," Jehovah con- 
tinues, "shall be with them; and I will be their 
God, and they shall be my people" (37. 27). 

In connection with this picture of the future, 
there are two or three points that call for special 
attention. First, these words of hope were in- 
tended for the exiles, and apparently for the 
exiles alone. In 11. 14-21 a sharp distinction 
is drawn between them and the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem. The latter lay claim to the promises 
of the past, saying: "Get you far from Jeho- 
vah ; unto us is this land given for a possession." 
But the prophet replies that it is those who have 
been removed far off among the nations who 
are to inherit the land and be, in fact, the people 
of God. Again, in 33. 23-29, those who re- 
mained in the waste places after the fall of Jeru- 
salem are reported as saying, "Abraham was one, 
232 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

and he inherited the land : but we are many ; the 
land is given us for inheritance." To this the 
prophet replies by declaring that these survivors 
themselves will be visited by a destructive judg- 
ment which will make it clear that possession of 
the land does not rest upon natural grounds, but 
upon moral fitness. Everywhere in the book of 
Ezekiel it is the returned exiles, and apparently 
they alone, who are to share in the Messianic 
salvation. Of those who remained in Palestine 
Ezekiel, like Jeremiah (chapter 24), seems to 
have had a low opinion (12. 16; 14. 21-23). 
The future of Israel's religion, he was convinced, 
lay with ''them of the captivity." 

Another point to be observed in connection 
with Ezekiel's view of the future is the divine 
motive for the restoration of Israel. It is not 
love, as in Hosea, nor compassion, as in Jere- 
miah, but jealousy, regard for his own honor. 
Jehovah would not permit the heathen to pro- 
fane his holy name by attributing the continu- 
ance of Israel's exile to his own weakness. He 
must, therefore, restore Israel in order to con- 
vince the nations that he is Jehovah, and to sanc- 
tify his name in their eyes. Not for Israel's 
sake, then, was the restoration to be accom- 
plished, but for his own name's sake (36. 20-23). 
Back of this representation lay the great idea 
that the goal of human history is to be found 

233 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

in the recognition of the sovereign will of God. 
Reverence for him as the moral ideal is the 
basis of all true religion. In the idea also that 
the restoration of the exiles did not depend upon 
their own deserts (36. 22, 32), there was an 
element of consolation. If they were to be dealt 
with according to their own merits, there would 
be little hope for them. Their one ground of 
confidence lay in the gracious will of God. We 
have here an anticipation of the Pauline doc- 
trine of justification by faith. 

But a more remarkable anticipation of 
Pauline teaching is to be found in Ezekiel's doc- 
trine of regeneration and the impartation of the 
divine Spirit. Israel, before her restoration, 
and as a condition of it, is to undergo a complete 
change of character. 'T will sprinkle," says Je- 
hovah, "clean water upon you, and ye shall be 
clean: from all your filthiness, and from all 
your idols, will I cleanse you. K new heart also 
will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within 
you; and I will take away the stony heart out 
of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of 
flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and 
cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall 
keep my ordinances, and do them" (36. 25-27). 
This is one of the high points in Ezekiel's teach- 
ing. Jeremiah had already taught the inward- 
ness of true religion and the need of a radical 
234 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

change of heart, but nowhere does he express 
so clearly as we have it here the idea of the 
new birth. Ezekiel at this point takes a step 
beyond Jeremiah. 

The promise, however, of a transformed and 
restored nation did not meet all the religious dif- 
ficulties of the exiles nor remove all their 
grounds of discouragement. They were still 
disturbed by the apparent injustice of God's 
dealings with them. Some thought they were 
being punished for the sins of their fathers, and 
others felt they were under the ban of their own 
past. There was, therefore, no hope for them. 
It was to meet this situation that Ezekiel formu- 
lated the doctrine of individualism, the most sig- 
nificant element in his teaching. This doctrine 
is distinctly expressed in five different passages 
(3. 16-21; 14. 12-20; 18. 1-32; 33. 1-9; 33. 
10-20). In two of these (3. 16-21; 33. 1-9) 
the prophet is chiefly concerned with the ques- 
tion of the extent of his own responsibility. The 
answer given to this question is that he is re- 
sponsible for the faithful performance of his 
duties as watchman, but not for their successful 
issue. But in these two passages, as well as in 
the other three, the general idea of individual 
responsibility and individual retribution is also 
clearly taught. There is no wholesale condem- 
235 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

nation and no wholesale salvation of men. 
Everyone is judged by himself alone. There is 
also no transference either of merit or guilt. If 
a calamity come upon a land, ''though these 
three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in 
it, they should deliver but their own souls by 
their righteousness" (14. 14). And so, on the 
other hand, ''the soul that sinneth, it shall die: 
the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, 
neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the 
son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be 
upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked 
shall be upon him" (18. 20). The destiny of 
every individual is determined by his own char- 
acter. But Ezekiel does not stop there. He goes 
on to say that it is within the power of every 
individual to change his own character and so 
determine for himself whether his own lot is 
to be that of life or death (18. 21-32; ^^. 
10-20). The question of salvation, then, is 
purely individual and personal. There is no 
hereditary guilt and no vicarious suffering. 

That this teaching was in the abstract admira- 
bly adapted to meet the practical needs of the 
exiles is generally admitted. It cut from under 
them all ground of complaint against the divine 
justice. But it did so, according to many, at the 
expense of the actual facts of life. The indi- 
vidual, it is said, is not so independent of others, 
236 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

and of his own past, as is here declared. The 
prophet here gives us an '^atomistic" view of the 
moral life. He denies the facts of heredity and 
social solidarity, and ''cuts up the individual life 
into sections which have no moral relation to 
one another." But this criticism, which is not 
uncommon, rests upon a misunderstanding of 
Ezekiel's teaching. It assumes that he was writ- 
ing from an empirical point of view, and meant 
to assert that in all the relations of life here and 
now the law of individual retribution is strictly 
observed. But this would so manifestly have 
contradicted the experiences of the exiles that 
we cannot credit Ezekiel with it. His standpoint 
is ideal. He is writing from a transcendent or 
eschatological point of view. What he is con- 
sidering is the soul simply in its relation to God ; 
and this he thinks of as finally settled at the 
great day of Jehovah which is not far distant. 
Between this standpoint and the empirical he 
may not himself have sharply distinguished. 
The two may for him have been to some extent 
confused with each other (compare 21. 3, 4 with 
9. 4-6). This was almost inevitable at a time 
when the line had not as yet been sharply drawn 
between the temporal and the eternal, the ma- 
terial and the spiritual. But that the super- 
empirical or eschatological factor was prominent 
in the thought of Ezekiel cannot be questioned. 

237 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Life and death with him did not mean merely 
physical life and physical death. These terms 
carried with them a higher spiritual connota- 
tion. Something of what we mean by eternal 
life and death attached to them. Only as we 
realize this can we fully appreciate the religious 
energy of the prophet's message. And from this 
higher point of view his teaching concerning the 
individual is eminently true. The ultimate des- 
tiny of every person must rest with himself 
alone. This is a necessary requirement of abso- 
lute ethics. 

To have thus disentangled the life of the indi- 
vidual from that of the nation was, of course, not 
the achie^'ement of Ezekiel alone. It was the out- 
come of a long development. The idea that the 
righteous would not perish with the guilty was an 
ancient conviction (Gen. i8. 25), and must have 
formed the background of the earlier literary 
prophets (compare Amos 9. 9, 10). It was, 
indeed, implied in the current doctrine of the 
remnant. Then, too, we cannot suppose that 
these early prophets attributed to Jehovah a 
lower moral standard than that represented by 
the king Amaziah, who spared the children of 
his father's murderers when the latter were put 
to death (2 Kings 14. 5, 6). But while the idea 
of a distinction between the fate of the righteous 
and that of the wicked was not new with Eze- 
238 



THE PROPHET OF INDIVIDUALISM 

kiel, it was he, so far as we know, who first 
formulated the doctrine of individualism. He 
made it a necessary correlate of the divine jus- 
tice. And not only did he do this. He also put 
back of it the gracious will of God, and so trans- 
formed it into a gospel. ''As I live, saith the 
Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death 
of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from 
his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your 
evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Is- 
rael?" (33. 11). This is the most precious say- 
ing in the whole book of Ezekiel. It comes 
nearer than any other to the heart of the New 
Testament. As we read it, we can almost hear 
the voice of the Master saying, ''There is joy 
in the presence of the angels of God over one 
sinner that repenteth" (Luke 15. 10). 



239 



CHAPTER VII 

DEUTERO-ISAIAH THE PROPHET OF 
UNIVERSALISM 

Amos and Hosea, as we have seen, owe much 
of their present distinction to the work of mod- 
ern critics. But the debt of Deutero-Isaiah to 
this source is, in a sense, still greater. The very 
knowledge of his existence is a modern discov- 
ery. For some reason or through some circum- 
stance, his prophecies came to be attached to 
the book of Isaiah and to be regarded as a part 
of the work of the great prophet of the eighth 
century. This was the view of Jesus the son of 
Sirach (Ecclus. 48. 22-25), who lived about 
B. C. 200. It was also the opinion universally 
held until a little over a century ago. 

The arguments which have led modern schol- 
ars to assign Isaiah 40 to 66 to another and later 
prophet are partly literary, partly theological, 
and partly historical. The language and style 
of the two parts of the book differ so widely 
from each other that they can hardly have ema- 
nated from the same person. The same is also 
to be said of the theological ideas. And the his- 
torical conditions presupposed in the latter part 
of the book require us to believe that the author 
240 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

must have lived about one hundred and fifty 
years after the time of Isaiah. The people of 
Israel are no longer in their own land, but are 
scattered to the four corners of the earth 
(43- 5> 6). Jerusalem is destroyed and the cities 
of Judah laid waste (44. 26). The dominant 
world power is not Assyria but Babylon. And 
Babylon is soon to be destroyed (46. i, 2; 47). 
A new world-conqueror, Cyrus by name, has 
appeared upon the scene (44. 28). He has al- 
ready subdued many nations, and before long 
will perform the pleasure of Jehovah upon 
Babylon herself (48. 14). This general situ- 
ation is not predicted as something that is to 
occur in the distant future. It is assumed to 
be already existent. Cyrus is already upon the 
scene. The people of Israel are already in exile. 
Indeed, it is to them as exiles that these prophe- 
cies are addressed. There can, then, be no doubt 
that the author of these chapters himself lived 
in the time of the exile. 

For some reason the writer did not attach his 
name to the prophecies. It has been suggested 
that he may himself have issued them under the 
name of Isaiah, in order to express the convic- 
tion that the divine word he was commissioned 
to deliver was in substance the same as that 
spoken by the greatest of the prophets of the 
past. In that case his work was pseudepi- 
241 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

graphic, like that of the later apocalyptists. But 
while this would account for the loss of the 
author's name and would also explain the fact 
that his prophecies form a part of the book of 
Isaiah, there is no direct evidence in support of 
it. Not the slightest indication is anywhere 
given in these chapters that the author intended 
that they should pass for the work of Isaiah. 
There is no title, no superscription. Isaiah is 
nowhere mentioned by name. There is abso- 
lutely nothing that would suggest to the reader 
that the author lived in the eighth century before 
Christ. We therefore conclude that the author 
did not himself connect his prophecies with the 
name of Isaiah. Nevertheless, there is a cer- 
tain spiritual affinity between the two men. The 
author of Isaiah 40 to 66 had evidently been a 
careful student of Isaiah. We observe, for in- 
stance, that he uses again and again Isaiah's 
characteristic designation of Jehovah, *'the Holy 
One of Israel," and not only uses the name but 
shares in and emphasizes the fundamental idea 
thus expressed. There is, then, a double sig- 
nificance in the name of Deutero-Isaiah, applied 
to him. It means not only that his prophecies 
form the second part of the book of Isaiah, but 
also that they reflect the spirit and reveal the 
influence of the great prophet of the eighth cen- 
tury. 

242 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

Thus far we have spoken of Isaiah 40 to 66 
as though these chapters were all the work of 
one man. And such is the view of not a few 
scholars. But as chapters i to 39 received later 
additions, it is not improbable that this was also 
the case with the second part of the book. Any- 
how, it will have to be admitted that chapters 
56 to 66 apparently come from a later date than 
chapters 40 to 55. After chapter 55 nothing is 
said about the return of the Jews from Baby- 
lon. Everything points to Jerusalem as the cen- 
ter of the life of the people. But how far be- 
yond the return from Babylon (B. C. 537) these 
later chapters carry us is a difficult question to 
answer. The wall of the city has apparently 
not been rebuilt (58. 12; 60. 10). Hence, we 
cannot go down further than B. C. 445. But 
whether the second temple has been erected (B. 
C. 520-516) is not clear. Some passages (56. 5, 
7; 60. 7, 13; 66. 6, 2off.) seem to imply its ex- 
istence; others, however, seem to imply with 
equal clearness the contrary (63. 18; 64. 10, 11 ; 
66. 1-2). The result is that there is a wide di- 
versity of opinion among scholars as to the 
origin of these chapters. Some assign them to 
a prophet who is supposed to have lived between 
B. C. 458 and 445, and to whom they give the 
name Trito-Isaiah. Others think we have here 
a number of anonymous prophecies written be- 
243 



H 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

tween the return from Babylon and the time of 
Nehemiah (B. C. 537-445). Still others see in 
them the work of Deutero-Isaiah himself during 
the later years of his life. In view of these con- 
flicting opinions, it is fortunate that the most 
important utterances of Deutero-Isaiah are, in 
any case, to be found in chapters 40 to 55. The 
later chapters of the book, if from him, add very 
little to his positive message. We shall, there- 
fore, make the earlier chapters (40 to 55) the 
chief basis of our study. 

It is remarkable how completely Deutero- 
Isaiah has hidden himself behind his message. 
Not only has he withheld from us his name. 
We do not even know with certainty where he 
lived. The common view is that his home was 
in Babylonia; and this may be correct, but the 
evidence adduced in its support is far from con- 
clusive. The word ''here" in 52. 5 refers ap- 
parently to Babylonia, but so also does "from 
thence" in 52. 11. The latter verse, therefore, 
leaves the impression that wherever the author's 
home was it certainly was not in Babylonia. 
Hence, some have found it in Phoenicia, others 
in Egypt, and still others in Palestine. In favor 
of Palestine, it is urged that the author's vocab- 
ulary is distinctively Palestinian. The natural 
and artificial objects referred to are most of 
them characteristic of the Holy Land rather than 
244 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

Babylonia. But over against this, it is claimed 
by others that Deutero-Isaiah's style shows clear 
traces of Babylonian influence. And if it is in- 
sisted that the author speaks at times as though 
he were a resident of Palestine (41. 9; 40. 2, 9), 
it is replied that he simply transports himself 
thither in imagination. Thus the argument goes 
on. The fact is that data for a final solution of 
the problem do not exist. Chapters 40 to 55 are 
singularly lacking in local coloring. The bur- 
den of the Babylonian exiles is manifestly upon 
the prophet's heart (40. 2"]', 48. 20), and hence 
it is natural to seek him among them. But his 
thought is rooted in no single place. From his 
watchtower, wherever it may have been, in Baby- 
lonia or Palestine, in Egypt or Phoenicia, he sur- 
veys the four corners of the earth. In a real 
sense the whole world was his parish. 

But whether he at the same time carried on 
an active local ministry is another point on 
which he has left us in doubt. The common 
opinion is that he did not. A recent writer, for 
instance, describes him as "neither a man of 
action nor a preacher, but an observer, a writer, 
a recluse." In favor of this view various con- 
siderations are urged, such as the anonymity of 
his prophecies, the fact that they are addressed 
to no definite audience, their lack of concrete 
detail, and the continuity of thought that binds 

245 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

them together into a Hterary whole. But to all 
this the reply is made that a man of such pas- 
sion as Deutero-Isaiah could not have lived the 
life of a recluse. His very intensity of feeling 
must have driven him into the forum. Further- 
more, there are indications here and there (50. 
6, 7; 49. 4) that he was probably himself forced 
to suffer for his public activity. In any case, 
there is nothing in the fact of the anonymity of 
his prophecies that necessarily conflicts with 
their having been first publicly delivered to 
groups of hearers. And as for their supposed 
literary continuity, it is by no means certain that 
this continuity exists in the form and to the ex- 
tent that is frequently claimed. It is quite pos- 
sible, indeed probable, that we have here a num- 
ber of originally independent prophecies. These 
prophecies may at first have been issued as tracts, 
and have been the direct outcome of an active 
public ministry. But, however they originated, 
it will have to be admitted that they have a more 
distinctly literary cast than do the earlier pro- 
phetic books. And this fact, together with the 
author's concealment of his own personality, in- 
dicates that in him the transition from prophecy 
to apocalyptic had already begun. 

The date of Deutero-Isaiah, as we have al- 
ready seen, appears to be definitely fixed by the 
historical references in his prophecies. Cyrus 
246 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

is on the scene. Babylon is about to fall. The 
Jewish exiles are soon to go free. Shortly, then, 
before the fall of Babylon, in B. C. 538, must, 
it would seem, have been the date of the Deu- 
tero-Isaiah's ministry. But a distinction should, 
perhaps, be made between chapters 40 to 48 
and chapters 49 to 55. The latter, while they 
look forward to the release of the exiles (52. 
II f.; 55. 12 f.), say nothing about Cyrus and 
the capture of Babylon. They may, therefore, 
have been written after the fall of the city, but 
before the issue of the decree permitting the 
Jewish captives to return to their homeland 
(Ezra 6. 1-5). In that case they were issued a 
few months later than the preceding prophecies, 
and B. C. 540-537 might be fixed upon as the 
date of chapters 40 to 55 as a whole. If Deu- 
tero-Isaiah also wrote chapters 56 to 66 he must 
have continued his ministry in Jerusalem after 
the return from the Babylonian captivity. 

Clear, however, and apparently final as all 
this is, it has in recent years been called in ques- 
tion by a number of American scholars, notably 
C. C. Torrey, C. F. Kent, and W. H. Cobb. 
These scholars contend that in the two instances 
where Cyrus is mentioned by name (44. 28; 
45. i) we have later interpolations, and that all 
the passages that have been supposed to refer to 
him (41. 2-4, 25; 44. 28; 45. 1-6, 13; 46. 11; 
247 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

48. 14, 15) really refer to Israel, the servant- 
nation. With one stroke they thus eliminate 
from the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah the one 
element that bound them to a definite historical 
situation. Babylon and its fall, it is true, are 
still mentioned, But Babylon remained a great 
city long after it surrendered to Cyrus, and for 
several centuries was ''the natural representa- 
tive in the eyes of the Jews of the great world- 
power in the East" (Cobb). It may, then, be 
in this sense, and not as an independent Semitic 
kingdom, that it is referred to in Isa. 47 and 
46. I, 2. These passages consequently require 
no definite date. And so it is also with the ref- 
erences to the return from the exile. "We 
must," says Cobb, "enlarge our conception of 
the exile. The fifty years which a few Jews 
spent in Babylonia after the fall of the Holy 
City were simply a sample of what was going 
on in many lands in the time of our prophet, 
whoever, whenever, and wherever he was." 
What is said in Deutero-Isaiah about the exiles 
may therefore refer to that "wider dispersion 
over the civilized world of the Israelites whose 
ingathering continued to be an object of aspira- 
tion long after the Jewish state had been re- 
established." From this it is clear that if we 
eliminate the references to Cyrus from Deutero- 
Isaiah, we have no certain means by which to 
248 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

date his prophecies. There was no specific 
occasion, so far as we know, that gave rise 
to them. They are left suspended in the air, 
and may have been written at any time dur- 
ing the Persian period (B. C. 538-332). In- 
deed, they need not even be confined to this 
period. 

The question thus raised has an important 
bearing on the interpretation of Deutero-Isaiah. 
Not only are many individual passages affected 
by it, but the whole theme of the book is in- 
volved. Driver, for instance, defines the theme 
as "Israel's restoration from exile in Babylon." 
And this, supplemented by the idea of the final 
coming of the kingdom of God, is the natural 
view, so long as we regard the prophecies as 
written shortly before the fall of Babylon and 
as having in mind a concrete historical situation. 
Their aim, then, was, as Driver, says, "to arouse 
the indifferent, to reassure the wavering, to ex- 
postulate with the doubting, to announce with 
triumphant confidence the certainty of the ap- 
proaching restoration." But if they were writ- 
ten during the Persian period and contained 
originally no reference to Cyrus and his capture 
of Babylon, it is evident that we must form a 
different conception of their character and pur- 
pose. They were not, according to this view, 
the outcome of any crisis in the life of the peo- 
249 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

pie. They served no immediate historical pur- 
pose. They were simply religious discourses or 
poems of a general character inculcating the 
truth of ''the supremacy of Jehovah and the call 
of Israel to be his servant, to reveal his light 
and truth to all mankind" (Cobb). There are 
thus two quite distinct conceptions of the origin 
and character of these prophecies. 

In deciding between these views it should 
first be observed that it is a serious objection to 
the more recent of the two that it requires a 
modification of the received text. No matter 
how plausible the reasons may be for eliminat- 
ing the name of Cyrus from 44. 28 and 45. i, 
they are not and cannot be made sufficiently ob- 
jective to overcome the natural and well- 
grounded prejudice in favor of the traditional 
reading, wherever this reading is not manifestly 
obscure or inconsistent with its context. And 
that this is not the case in the present instance 
cannot be gainsaid. But admitting the possible 
correctness of the change in the text, we still 
have difficulty in applying the apparent Cyrus- 
passages to Israel. The person, individual or 
collective, addressed in 45. 4 is clearly dis- 
tinguished from Israel. It is for Israel's sake 
that he is called. "He shall build my city," 
says Jehovah, "and he shall let my exiles go 
free" (45. 13). That the one so spoken of was 
250 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

Israel itself, is certainly in the highest degree 
improbable. Furthermore, the ''ravenous bird 
from the east" in 46. 11 applies more naturally 
to Cyrus than to Israel. The same is also true 
of the victorious military career described in 
41. 2, 3 and 45. 1-3. As an offset to this, it is 
pointed out that some of the things supposed to 
have been said of Cyrus are found also in pas- 
sages that speak of Israel (compare 45. i with 
41. 13). But this is characteristic of Deutero- 
Isaiah, a characteristic, it may be added, that 
renders especially difficult the interpretation of 
his prophecies. He has certain fixed formulas 
and well-defined ideas that he applies to all his 
characters, no matter whether he is speaking of 
Jehovah, of Cyrus, of Israel, or of the Servant. 
The result is that it is often no easy matter to 
determine whom he has in mind. But this man- 
ifestly does not warrant the conclusion that they 
all are one and the same being. 

Another consideration that has no little weight 
in this connection is the analogy of the other 
prophets. The five whom we have studied all 
found their inspiration in some concrete his- 
torical situation. There was the approach of 
some enemy — the Assyrians, Scythians, or Baby- 
lonians — and the consequent threatened destruc- 
tion of Israel or Judah. In each case such an 
impending event gave wings to the soul of the 

2^1 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

prophet. This makes it natural to look for some- 
thing similar in the case of Deutero-Isaiah. And 
such a situation is furnished by the victorious 
career of Cyrus and the approaching fall of 
Babylon. For upward of fifty or sixty years 
the Israelites had been in captivity. But lapse 
of time had not lessened their interest in the 
homeland. Fast days were regularly observed 
(Zech. 8. 19; 7, 5), commemorating the begin- 
ning of the siege of Jerusalem (2 Kings 25. i), 
its capture (Jer. 39. 2), its destruction (2 Kings 
25. 8f.), and the assassination of Gedaliah (Jer. 
41. if.). In these and other ways the people 
kept alive the memory of the sad fate that had 
befallen their sacred city, and also stimulated 
the hope of better things both for themselves 
and for the desolate land. When, therefore, 
Cyrus appeared upon the scene, it was not unnat- 
ural that they should look toward him with more 
or less of expectancy. And as victory after vic- 
tory attended his steps, as Media, Persia, and 
Lydia one after the other fell under his sway, 
the hope must have risen higher and higher that 
here at last was their expected deliverer. Under 
such circumstances it would seem almost inevit- 
able that some inspired soul must have mounted 
up with wings as eagles and announced the fall 
of proud Babylon and the redemption and resto- 
ration of the chosen people. Certainly, no other 
252 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

occasion in Israel's history was so well adapted 
to call forth such a message. It may, then, in 
default of positive disproof, be confidently as- 
sumed that we have here the actual conditions 
under which Isaiah 40 to 55 was written. 

It would, however, be a serious mistake to 
suppose that Deutero-Isaiah's message consisted 
simply in the announcement of Israel's deliver- 
ance from Babylon. This was only part of a 
larger program. ^'The prophet," as Davidson 
says, "conceives himself to be standing before a 
restoration that is final and universal." The end 
of days has come upon him. A new and golden 
age is soon to dawn. It is from this point of 
view that the marvelous procession of the re- 
deemed through the wilderness is to be under- 
stood. "Ye shall go out," says the prophet, 
"with joy, and be led forth with peace: the 
mountains and the hills shall break forth be- 
fore you into singing; and all the trees of the 
field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn 
shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of the 
brier shall come up the myrtle tree : and it shall 
be to Jehovah for a name, for an everlasting 
sign that shall not be cut ofif" (55. 12, 13; com- 
pare 40. 3, 4; 41. 17-20; 43. 19-21). From the 
same standpoint also we are to understand the 
description of the new Jerusalem. "Behold," 
says Jehovah, "I have graven thee upon the 
253 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

palms of my hands; thy walls are continually 
before me. . . . O thou afflicted, tossed with tem- 
pest, and not comforted, I will set thy stones in 
fair colors, and lay thy foundations with 
sapphires. And I will make thy pinnacles of 
rubies, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy 
border of precious stones" (49. 16; 54. 11, 12). 
These and similar utterances of the prophet are 
not merely rhetorical extravagances. They ex- 
press a vital faith on his part in the coming of a 
new heaven and a new earth. 

The idea of the approaching end of the pres- 
ent world-order was not unknown to the earlier 
prophets. They expected before long a won- 
derful and final manifestation of the power of 
Jehovah. First, there was to be a general judg- 
ment, and then there was to be a renewal and 
restoration of the peoples of the earth under the 
leadership of a purified Israel. This was the 
form the idea of eternity took with them. And 
we can fully understand their message only as 
we bear in mind this general background of their 
thought. But they did not draw so sharp a con- 
trast between the new and the old as does Deu- 
tero-Isaiah. They did not grasp so clearly as 
he the unideal character of the present order, 
nor did they see so plainly as he the antithesis 
between the temporal and the eternal. Hence, 
they laid no such stress as he upon the eternity 

254 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

of the new age. "Israel," he says, "shall be 
saved by Jehovah with an everlasting salva- 
tion. . . and everlasting joy shall be upon their 
heads" (45. 17; 51. 11). Hence, also, the 
change to which they looked forward was far 
less radical than that which he describes. "Lift 
up your eyes," he says, "to the heavens, and 
look upon the earth beneath; for the heavens 
shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth 
shall wax old like a garment; and they that 
dwell therein shall die in like manner; but my 
salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness 
shall not be aboHshed" (51. 6). This, says 
Duhm, is "the greatest and loftiest thought con- 
ceived before Christianity." It is not equivalent 
to the Christian idea of heaven, for individual 
immortality is not yet assured (compare 65. 
20-22), but it is a long step in that direction. 
And a century or two later the goal was almost 
attained when an inspired seer, as he contem- 
plated the glorious future, cried out, "He hath 
swallowed up death forever; and the Lord Je- 
hovah will wipe away tears from off all faces" 
(Isa. 25. 8). 

Passing now to a more general study of the 
teaching of Deutero-Isaiah, we are, first of all, 
impressed with the almost complete absence of 
a message of doom. This is in marked con- 

255 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

trast with the earlier prophets, and was due to 
the altered circumstances of Deutero-Isaiah's 
ministry. We have already observed the effect 
which the fall of Jerusalem had upon Ezekiel's 
preaching. Previously his message had been one 
chiefly of doom. Thereafter it became one al- 
most exclusively of hope and consolation. The 
reason for the change is manifest; and it was 
still operative in the time of Deutero-Isaiah. 
What the people in their national humiliation 
and depression of spirit needed was encourage- 
ment, not rebuke. But this does not mean that 
the prophet took no account of their shortcom- 
ings. He reminds them again and again that 
their suffering and misfortune have been the re- 
sult of their own sins (42. 24f. ; 43. 27f. ; 50. i). 
They have dealt very treacherously from the 
womb (48. 8), and are still blind and deaf (42. 
18). Yea, they are insincere, obstinate, and even 
inclined to idolatry (48. 1-5). But these short- 
comings were not characteristic of the people as 
a whole. In the nation as such the prophet had 
confidence. They were to be redeemed and were 
to be ''all righteous" (60. 21). "Hearken unto 
me," says Jehovah, "ye that know righteousness, 
the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye 
not the reproach of men, neither be ye dismayed 
at their revilings. For the moth shall eat them 
up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them 
256 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

like wool; but my righteousness shall be for- 
ever and my salvation unto all generations" 
(51. 7, 8). Deutero-Isaiah was not an individu- 
alist, but it is evident from this and other pas- 
sages that he distinguished clearly between the 
fate of the righteous and that of the wicked. 
Certain destruction awaited the latter. Baby- 
lon, therefore, noted for its oppression, its pride 
and its wickedness, must needs go down into 
ruin (chapter 47). And so it must be with all 
that oppose the will of Jehovah (compare 57. 
2of.). But for Israel as such there is no word 
of doom. The unrighteousness in her midst 
may delay the day of her redemption (59. i, 2), 
but eventually she will be saved with an ever- 
lasting salvation. 

The element of hope was not lacking in the 
earlier prophets, but with them it was incidental 
or followed a ministry of doom. Here it is 
the pervading spirit of an entire ministry. Deu- 
tero-Isaiah was throughout his whole career a 
prophet of hope. ''Comfort ye, comfort ye my 
people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably 
to Jerusalem ; and cry unto her that her warfare 
is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, 
that she hath received of Jehovah's hand double 
for all her sins" (40. i, 2). With these words 
he began his prophetic ministry and in this spirit 
he continued it (compare 51. 3; 66. 13). 
257 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Whether 6i. 1-3 was written by him or not, and 
whether it referred originally to him or the 
Servant, it nevertheless expresses truly his own 
aims : ''The spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon 
me ; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach 
good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to 
bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty 
to the captives, and the opening of the prison to 
them that are bound." 

The true function of religion, according to 
Deutero-Isaiah, was to help and to sustain men. 
This is beautifully expressed by a contrast drawn 
between Jehovah and the heathen gods (46. 
1-4). The latter are a burden to those that wor- 
ship them. Their idols are carried about as a 
load on the backs of weary beasts and they 
themselves trail helplessly after them. Jehovah, 
on the other hand, has been a sustaining power 
to his people through all their history. He has 
borne them from the womb, and will continue to 
carry them even to old age. It is characteristic 
of the true Deity to help those who seek his aid. 
Jehovah, therefore, says to Israel, "Fear thou 
not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I 
am thy God ; I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will 
help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right 
hand of my righteousness. . . . When thou pass- 
est through the waters, I will be with thee; and 
through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee : 

258 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt 
not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle 
about thee" (41. 10; 43. 2). Not even their 
sins need discourage the people of Israel, for, 
says Jehovah, "I have blotted out, as a thick 
cloud, thy transgressions, . . . and I will not re- 
member thy sins" (44. 2.2\ 43. 25). In these 
quotations we have an illustration of the pre- 
vailing tone of Deutero-Isaiah's prophecies. 
They breathe throughout the spirit of deep sym- 
pathy and tenderness. What is said of the 
Servant, that he would not break the bruised 
reed nor quench the dimly smoking wick 
(42. 3), is true also of our prophet. The Lord 
Jehovah had taught him, as he had taught the 
Servant, ''to sustain with words him that is 
weary" (50. 4). 

The message of hope which Deutero-Isaiah 
brought to his contemporaries was first an an- 
nouncement of the restoration of the exiles from 
Babylon and from the four quarters of the 
earth. Their return will far exceed the marvels 
of the exodus from Egypt (43. 16-21). Every- 
where in the wilderness rivers and fountains are 
to break forth, and a glorious vegetation is to 
spring up (41. 18, 19; 43. 19). Palestine itself 
is to be transformed into an Eden (51. 3), and 
Zion, in surprise at the number of her children, 
will ask, ''Who hath begotten me these?" 
259 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

(49. 21). To provide for them she will be 
forced to enlarge the place of her tent and 
stretch forth the curtains of her habitations 
(54. 2). But the restoration is not to consist 
simply in material or national glory. All evil 
is to be removed ; there is to be no more violence 
or destruction in the land (60. 18) ; sorrow and 
sighing are to flee away (51. 11) ; and the pres- 
ence of Jehovah is to be enjoyed in all its full- 
ness. The coming salvation is to exceed what 
even the most hopeful might ask or think, *'for 
my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are 
your ways my ways, saith Jehovah. For as the 
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my 
ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts 
than your thoughts" (55. 8, 9). A new heav- 
ens and a new earth are to be created, "and the 
former things shall not be remembered, nor 
come into mind" (65. 17). 'The sun shall be 
no more thy light by day; neither for brightness 
shall the moon give light unto thee; but Jeho- 
vah will be unto thee an everlasting light, and 
thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go 
down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; 
for Jehovah will be thine everlasting light, and 
the days of thy mourning shall be ended" (60. 
19, 20). It is Israel who is thus addressed, but 
the blessings of the new age are not to be con- 
fined to one nation. The ends of the earth are 
260 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

to share in them (45. 22). Even now they 
are offered freely to all men. *'Ho, every one 
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he 
that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, 
come, buy wine and milk, without money and 
without price. Wherefore do ye spend money 
for that which is not bread? and your labor for 
that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently 
unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let 
your soul dehght itself in fatness" (55. i, 2). 
Such was our prophet's message to the people of 
his day. No wonder that he is called "the Evan- 
gelist of the Old Testament" ! No' wonder that 
his book is termed ''the Gospel before the Gos- 
pel" ! 

The most significant features, however, of 
Deutero-Isaiah's teaching remain yet to be con- 
sidered. And the best way to approach them is 
to take up the four main characters that appear 
in his prophecies; Jehovah, Cyrus, Israel, and 
the Suffering Servant. The central figure of 
the book is, of course, Jehovah. The represen- 
tation of him here given does not differ mate- 
rially from that found in the preceding prophets. 
But as Amos laid special stress on the righteous- 
ness of God, Hosea on his love, Isaiah on his 
sovereignty, Jeremiah on his intimate relation 
to the soul of man, and Ezekiel on his holiness, 
261 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

so there are certain aspects of the divine nature 
or activity that Deutero-Isaiah particularly em- 
phasizes. Then, too, his thought is more devel- 
oped than that of his predecessors. This is 
quite as true of his theology as of his escha- 
tology. 

What seems to have impressed Deutero- 
Isaiah most in connection with Jehovah was his 
work as Creator. He is the one "that maketh 
all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens 
alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth" (44. 
24). Expressions similar to this occur again 
and again (42. 5; 45. 12, 18; 48. 13; 51. 13). 
And some of the finest passages in the book re- 
fer to this aspect of the divine activity: "Who 
hath measured the waters in the hollow of his 
hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and 
comprehended the dust of the earth in a meas- 
ure, and weighed the mountains in scales, 
and the hills in a balance? Who hath di- 
rected the Spirit of Jehovah, or being his 
counselor hath taught him? With whom 
took he counsel, and who instructed him, 
and taught him in the path of justice, and 
taught him knowledge, and showed to him the 
way of understanding?... Lift up your eyes 
on high, and see: who hath created these? he 
that bringeth out their host by number, that 
calleth them all by name; for fear of him who 
262 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

is of great might and strong power, not one is 
lacking" (40. 12-14, ^6). 

Along with this idea of the creative power 
of Jehovah went naturally the thought of his 
eternity, his transcendence, and his sole God- 
head. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; 
but the word of our God shall stand forever" 
(40. 8). Jehovah is ''the everlasting God" (40. 
28). He is the first and also the last (48. 12). 
He is "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth 
eternity" (57. 15). "It is he that sitteth above 
the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants 
thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out 
the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them 
out as a tent to dwell in; that bringeth princes 
to nothing; that maketh the judges of the earth 
as vanity" (40. 22, 23). Nothing earthly can 
compare with him: "Behold, the nations are 
as a drop of a bucket, and are accounted as the 
small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up 
the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon 
is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof 
sufficient for a burnt offering. All the nations 
are as nothing before him; they are accounted 
by him as less than nothing, and vanity" (40. 
15-17). How absurd, then, is all idolatry! 
How foolish the attempt to construct a likeness 
to God! (40. 18-20; 41. 6, 7; 44. 9-20; 45. 20; 
46. I, 2, 5-7). The only way to account for 
263 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

these attempts is to ascribe them to a strange 
infatuation of the human heart (44. 17-20), for 
the idols are nothing and can do nothing (41. 
2^y 24). There is no God but Jehovah: "I am 
Jehovah, and there is none else; besides me there 
is no God. . . . Before me there was no God 
formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even 
I, am Jehovah; and besides me there is no 
saviour. ... I am God, and there is none else. . . . 
I am the first, and I am the last; and besides 
me there is no God" (45. 5; 43. 10, 11; 45. 
22; 44. 6). Thus Jehovah is represented as 
asserting again and again his sole deity. In 
earlier times this had not been necessary. The 
people then stood apart to a large extent from 
the great heathen world. But the exile wrought 
a radical change. It exposed them to all the 
perils of a heathen environment. There was 
danger of their being overawed by the civiliza- 
tion about them. There was danger of defec- 
tion to false faiths. It was, therefore, impera- 
tive that they realized the fact that Jehovah, and 
he alone, is God, and that all other gods are non- 
entities. This was no new truth. It had been 
implicit in Israel's religion from the beginning, 
but it now needed to be made explicit. It 
needed to become a conscious article of faith; 
and such it is in Deutero-Isaiah. Here we have 
absolute monotheism, and we have it so clearly 
264 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

and emphatically expressed that there can be no 
doubt about it. 

This, then, is the conception of Jehovah that 
is most prominent with our prophet. He is sole 
Deity, the eternal and transcendent Creator of 
heaven and earth. But there is another side to 
his nature: he is also a God of grace. How im- 
pressively and persuasively this thought is ex- 
pressed, has already appeared in our discussion 
of the prophet's message of hope. In this con- 
nection only one additional point calls for atten- 
tion. Salvation is by Deutero-Isaiah regularly 
carried back to the divine righteousness. These 
two terms, instead of being opposed to each 
other, are used almost synonymously. "My 
righteousness," says Jehovah, "is near, my sal- 
vation is gone forth" (51. 5). "My righteous- 
ness shall be forever, and my salvation unto all 
generations" (51. 8). Jehovah is "a righteous 
God and a Saviour" (45. 21). This use of the 
word "righteous" or "righteousness" is com- 
monly explained by saying that Jehovah stood 
in a covenant relation to Israel, and so was mor- 
ally bound to be true to that relation and to save 
his people. But there are some passages in 
which his righteousness is represented as initiat- 
ing the covenant with Israel (42. 6, 21), and 
also as leading to the salvation of all mankind 
(51. 5). It would seem, then, that a profounder 
265 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

meaning must have underlain these statements 
with reference to the divine righteousness. And 
may it not have been this? God is not an irre- 
sponsible despot. He is the Creator and Father 
of all (compare 63. i6). He is, therefore, like 
any human parent — under obligation to his chil- 
dren. He is morally bound to do all he can to 
save them. His righteousness, instead of acting 
as a bar to the salvation of men, leads inevitably 
to it. God would not be true to himself as a 
moral being if he did not do everything within 
his power to bring about the redemption of men. 
This truth was probably not conceived so clearly 
by Deutero-Isaiah as it is here expressed. But 
some such idea was involved in his conception of 
the divine righteousness. And this idea, it may 
be added, forms the true basis of the Christian 
doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement. 
Jehovah is the efficient cause of all things. 
"I," he says, ''form the light, and create dark- 
ness; I make peace and create evil" (45. 7). 
Still, he was under the necessity of using human 
instruments. Of these, two are prominent in 
Deutero-Isaiah — Cyrus and the Servant. The 
use of a foreigner to further the purposes of 
Jehovah was not unknown to the earlier proph- 
ets. Isaiah speaks of the Assyrian king, prob- 
ably Sennacherib, as the rod of Jehovah*s anger 
and the staff of his indignation (10. 5). And 
266 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

Jeremiah refers several times to Nebuchadrez- 
zar as the servant of Jehovah (25. 9; 2y. 6; 
43. 10). But Cyrus is here represented as stand- 
ing in a more intimate relation to Jehovah than 
any preceding heathen ruler. He is Jehovah's 
"shepherd'' (44. 28), "his anointed" (45. i), 
the one "whom -Jehovah loveth" (48. 14). Not 
only is he to let the exiles go free and to rebuild 
Jerusalem (45. 13), he is himself to become a 
worshiper of Jehovah (41. 25), and to be the 
means of bringing about the universal recogni- 
tion of the true religion (45. 5, 6). How our 
prophet could have come to entertain such high 
hopes of Cyrus has been the subject of much 
speculation. Stress has been laid on the fact 
that Cyrus was a Persian. This, it is thought, 
may have led the prophet to believe that he was 
a Zoroastrian and so in sympathy with mono- 
theism. But there is nothing in the official docu- 
ments that have come down to us to support this 
view. Cyrus, it appears, was a polytheist; and, 
if he ever accorded Jehovah any recognition, it 
was simply as one among many gods. In the light 
of this fact, the view of him here expressed 
must be ascribed, in part at least, to the proph- 
et's idealism. Cyrus as the anointed of Jehovah 
far surpassed the historic reality. 

Before taking up the prophet's conception of 
the Suffering Servant a word is necessary con- 

2^7 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

cerning the people of Israel as depicted outside 
of the Servant-passages. They are addressed 
and spoken of as the servant of Jehovah (41. 
8f.; 43. 10; 44. if.; 45. 4; 48. 10). But they 
appear chiefly in a passive or receptive attitude. 
They are the subject of redemption rather than 
themselves a redemptive agency. They have 
been ''called" by Jehovah (41. 9) ; he is to pour 
his Spirit upon them (44. 3) ; and they are to be 
his witnesses (43. 10; 44. 8). But no definite 
vocation is ascribed to them. They are blind 
and unresponsive (42. 18-20). They have 
sinned and are being punished for their sins 
(42. 24f.). They are a people robbed and plun- 
dered (42. 22). So severe are their afflictions 
that they feel that the justice due them has 
passed away from their God (40. 27), and that 
he has forgotten them (49. 14). There is now, 
however, to be a change in their fortunes (43. i ; 
44. i). Their iniquity has been pardoned, they 
have received double for all their sins (40. 2; 
compare 47. 6), and are henceforth to be the 
recipients of the divine favor in abundant meas- 
ure. Heathen peoples are to be given as a ran- 
som for them (43. 3) ; and they are to enjoy the 
sure mercies of David (55. 3). Instead of being 
forced to do the bidding of foreign conquerors, 
other nations are to run to them (55. 5) and to 
bow down before them (45. 14; 49. 22f.). 
268 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

This representation of the Servant Israel dif- 
fers so strikingly from that of the Servant found 
in four or five passages (42. 1-7; 49. i-Qa; 50. 
4-9; 52. 13 to 53. 12; and possibly 61. 1-3) that 
the latter are commonly separated from the rest 
of the book and called as above the Servant-pas- 
sages. These prophecies are the most important 
and the most difficult in the book. The utmost 
diversity of opinion prevails with reference to 
their origin and interpretation. 'T should like," 
says Cornill, "to see the man whose head would 
not spin around like a top from surveying these 
opinions, which run through all possible permu- 
tations, and contradict one another at all con- 
ceivable points." The controversy centers about 
two main questions : were these passages writ- 
ten by Deutero-Isaiah or not ? and is the Servant 
here referred to to be interpreted collectively or 
as an individual? The arguments in favor of 
assigning the passages to another hand are not 
especially strong. Those based on rhythm and 
style have no independent force ; and those based 
on content do not take adequate account of the 
points of contact between the Servant-passages 
and the rest of the book. Viewed in the large, 
these prophecies seem necessary to complete the 
teaching of Deutero-Isaiah. As Cyrus is the hu- 
man instrument of Israel's external redemption, 
so it seems natural there should be a human 
269 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

agent through whom her inward or moral re- 
newal is affected. And this we have in the Suf- 
fering Servant. Then too these passages con- 
tain the richest religious thought of the whole 
book, and throw a new light over all the other 
prophecies. To eliminate them would be, as 
Budde says, ''to gouge out the eyes of the book." 

The other question is a more difficult one. 
The Suffering Servant is at first sight depicted 
as though he were an individual. There are, for 
instance, several passages that seem to dis- 
tinguish him clearly from Israel. In them we 
read that he is to be "a covenant of the people" 
(42. 6; 49. 6) ; he has been cut off because of 
the transgression of "my people" (53. 8) ; and 
he is ''to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to re- 
store the preserved of Israel" (49. 6; compare 
50. 10). But, on the other hand, there is one 
verse in which he is directly identified with Is- 
rael (49. 3). And this, it will have to be ad- 
mitted, is the view favored by the context as a 
whole. For in the rest of the book the Servant 
is Israel. It seems, then, only natural to hold 
that he is such in the Servant-passages also, 
since there is no statement anywhere to the con- 
trary. 

These apparently contradictory phenomena 
naturally raise the question as to whether there 
is any way of accounting for both sets of facts. 
270 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

An interesting and ingenious attempt in this di- 
rection has recently been made by Professor 
SelHn. He holds that the Servant-passages were 
written by Deutero-Isaiah about B. C. 560, and 
that they referred originally to Jehoiachin, who 
that year was released from prison after thirty- 
seven years of rigorous confinement, and ele- 
vated to a position above that of "the kings who 
were with him in Babylon" (2 Kings 25. 27-30). 
This release of Jehoiachin, who was of the Da- 
vidic line, awakened, it is thought, the hope that 
the Messianic expectations of the nation would 
be realized in him. Deutero-Isaiah conse- 
quently idealized his life, and interpreted his 
suffering and virtual death during the long years 
of his imprisonment as an atonement for the sins 
of the people. This was a new and higher con- 
ception of the Messiah, and represents a very 
important development in Old Testament 
thought. But the newly awakened Messianic 
hope was not destined to be fulfilled. Jehoiachin 
probably died a few years after his release. 
When, then, twenty years later, Cyrus appeared 
upon the scene and the deliverance of Israel 
seemed near, the prophet transferred to the peo- 
ple the Messianic ideal previously connected with 
Jehoiachin (compare 55. 3-5). But in so doing 
he did not prepare a new set of prophecies. He 
retained the old ones practically unchanged, 
271 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

simply putting them in a context which made 
them refer to the nation rather than an indi- 
vidual. It was not, however, actual Israel to 
whom he applied them any more than it was the 
actual Jehoiachin who was originally described 
by them. It was Israel from the ideal point of 
view, Israel as the representative of Jehovah's 
redemptive purpose. 

Whether this theory be correct or not, it at 
least has the value of emphasizing the Messianic 
character of the Suffering Servant. It has been 
customary in recent years to deny that the 
Servant was in any proper sense of the term a 
Messianic figure. Cyrus, according to Deutero- 
Isaiah, was the "anointed" one, the Messiah 
(45. i). But this is a very superficial and me- 
chanical view to take of the subject. The Mes- 
siah in his essential nature was the ideal person- 
age through whom the kingdom of God was to 
be introduced into the world. And in this sense 
the Suffering Servant is as truly Messianic as 
any royal character referred to in the Old Tes- 
tament. It is, then, just as proper to see in 
Isaiah 53 a reference to the life of Christ as it 
is to find it in any other Old Testament passage, 
for, no matter to whom the Suffering Servant 
may have originally referred, he was, in any 
case, an ideal figure. And every ideal sincerely 
believed in is a prophecy. That he is not called 
272 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

the Messiah, and that he is spoken of as though 
he were already present, has no significance as 
against this deeper view. 

Nowhere in the Old Testament have we such 
a lofty religious ideal as in the Suffering 
Servant. Not only did he have the high and 
almost unique mission of being a light to the 
Gentiles (49. 6), not only was he tender and 
sympathetic in nature (42. 3), not only was he 
persistent in the face of discouragement (42. 4; 
49. 4; 50. yi.), not only was he patient in tribu- 
lation (50. 6; 53. 7) ; his life was a sacrifice for 
the sins of others, and a sacrifice voluntarily 
borne. Men esteemed him stricken, smitten of 
God, and afflicted. But it was for their trans- 
gressions that he was wounded, for their iniqui- 
ties that he was bruised. The chastisement of 
their peace was upon him, and with his stripes 
they were healed. Jehovah laid on him the iniq- 
uity of them all (53. 4-6). This was the di- 
vinely chosen method of redeeming Israel and 
of redeeming the world. Through the suffering 
and final exaltation of the innocent Servant the 
divine justice and love were to be so exhibited 
that men would acknowledge their guilt and 
turn in penitence to God. In this conception we 
have the high-water mark of Old Testament 
spirituality. And there is nothing superior to it 
in the New Testament. The only difference is 

273 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

that what remained a pure ideal in the Old Tes- 
tament became an actuality in the New. 

But remarkable as is Deutero-Isaiah's concep- 
tion of vicarious suffering, there is another ele- 
ment in his teaching that may properly be re- 
garded as a more important contribution to the 
development of prophecy. This is his univer- 
salism. Israel's religion is to become the re- 
ligion of the world. Jeremiah, as we saw, stood 
at the threshold of this great thought, but did 
not make it a vital part of his message. Ezekiel 
in one instance (i6. 53-63) speaks of the resto- 
ration and redemption of the heathen world sym- 
bolized as Sodom, but, as a rule, manifests the 
particularism of a Jewish priest. Isaiah had 
occasional visions of Jerusalem as the religious 
center of the world (2. 2-4), but this with him 
could in the nature of the case be only a hope 
for the more or less distant future. So long as 
the nation was struggling for its life, there was 
manifestly no place for missionary activity. 
This could arise only after the state had fallen 
and the people had come into more intimate con- 
tact with the heathen world. Our prophet was 
consequently the first to express clearly and em- 
phatically the idea of Israel's mission to the 
world. And along with this went naturally the 
thought that the religion of Jehovah was in- 
274 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

tended for all men. All peoples were to share 
in his salvation. Deutero-Isaiah, therefore, is 
fittingly termed the prophet of universalism. 

This, however, does not mean that there are 
no traces of particularism in his prophecies. In 
spite of all his breadth he was still an intense 
nationalist. He looked upon Israel as the spe- 
cial object of Jehovah's care. And this led him 
at times to take what looks like an ungenerous 
and even hostile attitude toward the heathen. 
Jehovah, for instance, says to Israel: "They 
shall bring thy sons in their bosom, and thy 
daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. 
And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and 
queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow 
down to thee with their faces to the earth, and 
lick the dust of thy feet" (49. 22, 23 ; compare 
61. 5, 6). He also adds: "I will feed them 
that oppress thee with their own flesh ; and they 
shall be drunken with their own blood, as with 
sweet wine" (49. 26). With this may be com- 
pared the powerful figure of Jehovah in 63. 1-6. 
"Who is this," asks some one, "that cometh from 
Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?" 
And the answer is, Jehovah, who has trodden 
down the peoples in his anger, and stained all 
his raiment with their lifeblood. 

But such passages as these do not represent 
the real attitude of Deutero-Isaiah. They are, 

275 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

rather, traditional eschatological material which 
has been adopted without being fully assimilated. 
His true position with regard to the heathen 
appears in his teaching concerning the Servant, 
Cyrus, and Jehovah. The Servant is to bring 
forth justice to the Gentiles, and the isles are to 
wait for his law. He is to be a Hght to the na- 
tions, and Jehovah's salvation to the end of the 
earth. His sufferings also are to avail for the 
heathen. It is they, as well as the guilty Israel- 
ites, who are represented as saying, "All we like 
sheep have gone stray ; we have turned everyone 
to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him 
the iniquity of us all" (53. 6). The redemption 
of the heathen is, therefore, the chief aim of 
the Servant, and the Servant-nation Israel. Is- 
rael's history is not an end in itself, but simply a 
means by which to bring about the salvation of 
the world. And so it is also with Cyrus. "1 
will gird thee," says Jehovah, "though thou hast 
not known me; that they may know from the 
rising of the sun, and from the west, that there 
is none besides me; I am Jehovah, and there is 
none else" (45. 5, 6). All human history has 
thus for its climax the universal knowledge of 
the true God. Every important idea in the book 
points toward this culmination. The sole deity 
of Jehovah, the nothingness of the idols, the 
sufferings and exaltation of the Servant, the 
2y6 



THE PROPHET OF UNIVERSALISM 

career of Cyrus, the approaching parousia — all 
these conceptions look forward to the time when 
the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as 
the waters cover the sea. It is, then, in line 
with the teaching of the book as a whole, when 
Jehovah says: "A law shall go forth from me, 
and I will establish my justice for a light of the 
peoples. My righteousness is near, my salvation 
is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the peo- 
ples; the isles shall wait for me, and on mine 
arm shall they trust. . . . Look unto me, and be 
ye saved, all the ends of the earth ; for I am God, 
and there is none else. By myself have I sworn, 
the word has gone forth from my mouth in 
righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me 
every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear" 
(51. 4, 5; 45. 22, 23). These utterances repre- 
sent the zenith of the prophetic conception of 
redemption. They imply that the true house of 
Jehovah will henceforth be "a house of prayer 
for all peoples" (56. 7) ; and they also point 
forward to the time when it shall be said that 
"there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision 
nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond 
nor free: but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 
3- ii)- 



V7 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES 



Genesis page 

18.25 238 

44-5 32 

49. 8-12 6 

Exodus 

7-1 30 

Numbers 

12.6-8 33, 36 

23 and 24 5 

24-4 34 

Deuteronomy 

13- 1-3 36 

18. 9-18 39 

18. 15, 18 II 

1 Samuel 

7 and 8 13 

9-6 29, 34 

9.9 13, 29 

10. 5-13 2 

15 13, 15 

18. 10 2 

19. 18-24 14 

2 Samuel 

7.8-16 5 

12 16 

24 15 

I Kings 

11. 29fT 16, 221 

18. 13 6 

18. 16-46 16 

18.25-29 3 

19. 1-18 16 

19. 18 156 

21 16 

22. 5ff 6, 8, 10 



2 Kings PAGE 

4. 1-7, 38-41 6 

5. 2off 8 

9- II 2, 34 

14. 5, 6 238 

24-1 173 

25. 27-30 271 

Nehemiah 

6. ia-14 2 

Psalms 

74-9 28 

Isaiah 

I- II-I7- • 148 

1. 18 149 

1-26 159 

2.2-4 159,274 

2.6 39, 147 

2. 12 146 

4- 2-6 159 

5- 8-23 148 

6 128 

7- 1-13 135 

7-3 127, 156 

7-4,9 151 

7. 14-17 160 

8. 16 158 

8. 17 155 

8. 18 127, 156 

9. 2-7 160 

10. 5-7 141, 266 

11. 1-9 160 

18.4 153 

22. 1-14 139 

22. 4 140, 148 

25.8 255 

28. 7-13 138 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES 

Isaiah page Isaiah page 

28. 12 152 60. 19, 20 260 

28. 15 6, 69, 146 61. 1-3 258, 269 

28, 16 152, 156 63. 1-6 275 

29. 13 147 

la fs.-:: ::::::::: :::4^ J^'^-^'^ 

31.3 129, 137 1.5 170, 171 

32. 1-5 160 I. 10 185 

40 to 66 27, 144, 240 4. 3, 4 178, 190 

40. I, 2 257 4. 19-21 195 

40. 8, 12-14, 15-17- • • 263 4. 23-26 186 

41- 2-4 247, 251 6. 7 190 

41. 25 267 6. 16 23, 200 

42. 1-7 269 6. 20 178 

42. 6 265, 270 7 180, 189 

42. 24f 256, 268 7. 4, II, 21, 22. . .178, 179 

43-2 259 8.7 189 

44-22 259 8.8 177 

44. 24 262 8. 18; 9. I 195 

44. 28.. .241, 247, 250, 267 9. 21, 22 187, 196 

45. 1 250, 267, 272 10. 23 190 

45.5 264,267,276 II. 1-14 177, 179 

45. 13 250, 267 12. I 205 

45-17 255 13. i-i I 100, 220 

45- 21 265 13. 16 ...187 

45-22 261, 264 13. 23 190 

46. I, 2 241, 248, 263 15. 10 197 

46. 1-4 258 15. 17 196 

46. II 247, 251 15. 18, 19 199 

47 241, 248, 257 16. 19, 20 194 

49 to 55 247 17. I • _• 188 

49. i-9a 269 17. 14, 17 200 

49- 3, 6. 270, 273 19. Iff 180 

49. 22, 26 275 20. 9 199 

50. 4-9 269 20. 14-18 197 

51.4,5 265,277 22. 15, 16 177 

51. 6 255 23. 5, 6 193 

51.7,8 257,265 24. 182,233 

52. 5, II 244 26. 20-23 9, 180 

53 269 28 10, 182, 188, 221 

53-6 276 28. 8 171, 185 

54- II, 12 254 31. 29, 30 194 

55- I, 2 261 31. 31-34 193 

55. 8, 9 260 32. 6-15 192, 221 

55- 12, 13 253 36 181, 184 

56 to 66 243, 247 42. 7 42 

279 



THE BEACON LIGHTS OF PROPHECY 

Ezekiel page Hosea page 

I to 3 208 I. 2 loi 

2. 1-7 213 1.3,8 99 

2. 8ff 220, 224 I. 10 to 2. 1 121 

3-15 216, 223 I. II 122, 124 

3- 16-21 214, 235 2. 5, 7, 12 114 

3. 25, 26 216, 222 2. 15 12, 121 

4-1-3 220 2. 19 121 

4. 4-8 216, 218, 219 2. 23 122 

4. 9-17 220 3. I 95, 119 

4. 14 202, 211 4- I, 2 Ill 

5- i-4a 220, 221 4. 3 108 

7-2-4 225 4-8,9 96,97 

II. 13 212, 216 5. 4 112, 118, 120 

11. 14-21 232 5. 6 112 

12. 1-7 220 5. 13 115, 120 

14.9 10 6.1,4 118,119 

14. 12-20 235 6. 6 112, 118, 149 

16. 3 ^2-] 7. 5 94 

16. 53-63 228, 274 7. II 115 

16. 63 218 8. 3. . 117 

18. 1-32 235 8. 13 66, 108, 112, 115 

18. 2 223, 228 9- 7, 8 2, 34, 97 

18. 25 212, 223 9. 15 107, 120, 122 

20. 32 228 II. 1-4 120 

21. 6, 7, 18-23 220 II. 8, 10, II 120, 121 

24. 1-14, 15-24.. .207, 220 12. 7, 8 no 

24.25-27 218,222 12.13 II 

29. 21 218 13. II 117 

33- 1-20 235 13. 13 119 

33. 10 228 13. 14 107, 120 

33-11 213, 239 14. 4 122 

33-21,22 217 

33- 23—29 232 Amos 

33-32 224 1.2 71 

34 to 37 213,229,231 2.4,5 61 

34. 10, 16, 23, 28... 231, 232 3.2 61,71,77, 162 

36. i6ff 211 3.7 30 

36. 20-23 233 3. 8 65 

36. 25-27 234 3. 9-12 66 

37- II 223, 228 3. 12 69 

37- 22, 27 232 4. 4 71, 79 

38 and 39 225, 229 4. 6-11 65,86 

40 to 48 202, 215, 230 4. 13 61 

TT 5.2 75 

Hosea 5.4-6; 14. 15 

I to 3 104 70, 83, 87, 156 

280 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES 



Amos PAGE 

5- 8, 9 6o 

5- i8 6,69, 74, 162 

5- 21-24 80, 149 

6. iff 62, 74 

6. 9, 10 72 



12. . . 
14... 
10-17 



82 
62 
63 



9.2-4 70.75 



5,6 

7... 
8-15. 



60 
78 

84 



Micah 



3.5 7,8 

6. 6-8 26, 149 



Matthew 



I. 23. 
16. 14 



PAGE 
. .160 
. .201 



Luke 



15- 10 239 

22. 20 201 



Colossians 
3. 



II 



277 



Hebrews 
II. 10. 



164 



281 



^ °^ 













^ -^0 ^ ^^ ^^sKo*''*^^ V j^ ^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 

^ -^ fr « ^ A ^ ^ <f ^ <^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
^ C^ ^ ^^/Ofs>. '^^ ^ Treatment Date: June 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson ParK Drive 
[ Cranberry Township PA 16066 

(724)779-2111 





^ ^ 

,^^^^ 



"^> 0^ 



^•t^ 









x^ ." 













% 



^S ^ 






.# >^ 



1 o ^cP„ ^Vv'^ * d\\ 9)R /A o v-^ iCV 






-^ <^^ 
















^>.r.^ 



v^t 



> - V * . ^, 



„ "1^ . ^. r f? 5i <' ^.^ y- ^ ^ c, <i <^ 




0..^^,^^ 



^" %,^^ - 











^^ ^ 




-Q, ^ 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

111 




014 396 417 6 



